Katharine Houreld

African Union troops fighting al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in the failed state of Somalia have a $10-million funding gap.

Three people were killed after suicide bombers attacked an African Union peacekeeping base in the Somali capital on Monday.

An advocacy group on Sunday said new satellite images provide evidence that northern Sudanese troops have committed war crimes.

Embattled Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo will try to mend fences with the United States, but US politicians are fuming over the debacle with former Liberian president Charles Taylor. He disappeared just before he was due to be extradited to face trial for war crimes and then Nigeria recaptured him before their President was due to meet with President George W Bush.

High above the traffic jams and street vendors choking on exhaust fumes, Nigeria’s larger-than-life politicians stride majestically towards the edge of towering billboards, arms gesturing to the great visions that lie just beyond the paper borders. The elections might be more than a year away, but the country is throwing itself into one of its favourite sports — politics — with a vengeance.

Abducting oil workers for ransom has become so common in Nigeria that beer mats in expatriate bars read, "Eat a lot — fat people are harder to kidnap". But for the four foreign hostages released unharmed earlier this week, the ordeal was no laughing matter. The group succumbed to malaria and was held for three weeks.

After a year dominated by tsunamis, earthquakes and conflict, the small West African country of Liberia is seen as an unusual success story. The civil war was ended by international intervention, orderly and transparent elections were held and Africa’s first woman president was elected on a mandate of popular reform.

Weh Nengon arrived at St Peter’s Lutheran church at 5am on Tuesday to cast his vote in the Liberian presidential run-off. Under the asphalt at his feet lay his 18-year-old nephew, George, one of more than 600 unarmed men, women and children who were massacred by the Liberian army. Like the hundreds of other voters patiently queuing around him, Nengon has faith that the elections will finally bring peace.

On the potholed and bullet-scarred streets of Liberia, a former world footballer-of-the-year is trying to beat a 66-year-old politician at her own game. Next Tuesday, ex-Chelsea and AC Milan player, high-school drop-out George Weah will go head-to-head with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a grandmother with a Harvard degree, in the presidential run-off in this war-ravaged West African country.

Precious* was 12 years old when she first sold sex, to a man nearly four times her age. Now 18, the Liberian schoolgirl says she sleeps with between five and six men on an average day in order to pay her school fees, which are the cheapest available at $1 500 Liberian dollars per year. She receives between $25 and $50 for each man.

The villagers in Egebeleku community have clean water. Shell built the project, powered by solar panels, to improve relations with the local communities they work alongside in the oil-rich but notoriously volatile Niger Delta. However, visitors hear one persistent whisper: "Put me in the Shell work, I need a job; I don’t have any work at all." The pleas of the youths lie at the heart of the problems that haunt Africa’s biggest oil producer.

While the militias and government troops battle it out in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s premier oil-producing city, an uneasy peace has descended on its twin sister in the west. For eight years the city of Warri in Delta State was convulsed by violence far worse than that in Port Harcourt today. At the height of the crisis, tens of thousands of people were displaced and thousands died.

The trial of the 14 foreigners accused of attempting to overthrow the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea last March has thrust the notoriously repressive regime on to the international stage. However, while the spotlight shines into the rat-infested cell the alleged mercenaries share in the notorious Black Beach prison, the political prisoners arrested two years ago remain mouldering in the shadows.

The Attorney General of Equatorial Guinea, José Olo Obono, was hoping that a free lunch for the international press would help deflect some of the negative coverage that the trial of 18 alleged coup plotters has so far attracted. Unfortunately, two British journalists were jailed for daring to leave the capital without a permit, and so this Wednesday the attorney general and Minister of Security and State Manuel Nguema feasted on the lavish display of prawns and papaya without their guests.