Matthew Lee

Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Congress to end the partial government shutdown and think "hard" about the message it sends the world.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appealed to Muslims to show "dignity" and not resort to violence as they protest an anti-Islam film.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told Kenya's leaders that the East African nation has a chance to become a model for other African nations.

State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley has quit after causing a stir by describing the treatment of the suspected WikiLeaks leaker as "stupid".

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday to target an epidemic of sexual assault.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday honoured the victims of the deadly 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The US said on Sunday it has begun transferring more than -million in Libyan money to the families of American victims of the Lockerbie bombing.

The Bush administration is preparing a case to designate the Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea a ''state sponsor of terrorism'' for its alleged support of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in Somalia, the top United States diplomat for Africa said on Friday. Officials are compiling evidence of Eritrean backing for the extremists to support the designation.

The continuing genocide in Sudan's troubled Darfur region was the world's worst human rights abuse last year, the United States said on Tuesday in a global report that found freedoms were eroding in numerous other nations, including US allies Afghanistan and Iraq. The State Department also criticised Russia for a ''further erosion of government accountability''.

Unusually heavy seasonal rains are threatening Somalia with its worst floods in 50 years while the impoverished Horn of Africa country teeters on the brink of all-out war. As forces loyal to the government and the Islamist movement gird for full-scale conflict that many fear could engulf the wider region, about 50 000 Somalis have been displaced by devastating and deadly floods.

In a field tucked away in a remote corner of south-west Kenya, perhaps the most unusual and poignant September 11 condolence gift to the United States grazes contentedly on long grass. Here in the heart of Maasailand, a small herd of cows ruminates, unaware they have forged a powerful symbolic bond between an isolated tribal community and the world's last superpower.

President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday won re-election in Uganda's first multiparty polls since 1980, but his main rival rejected the results as opposition supporters clashed with police. Museveni was declared the overwhelming victor in Thursday's landmark polls with nearly 60% of the vote.