WASHINGTON - The United States lifted U.S. travel restrictions on Libya as a reward for scrapping its nuclear arms programs, the White House said.
The move came a day after Libya rebuked statements by Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem, who had denied his country's guilt in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing.
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AL HOCEIMA, Morocco - Several people were hurt when the Moroccan military broke up a demonstration by protesters angry over the government response to this week's deadly earthquake, a local official told Reuters.
"There are clashes right now as we speak," said the official who witnessed the violence involving about 1,500 people in this Mediterranean port of Al Hoceima. The official asked not to be identified.
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KAMPALA - A new massacre in Uganda carried out by rebels led by a self-proclaimed mystic has sparked public anger that the government could not prevent it, but there are few signs of a new strategy to defeat the 17-year insurgency.
The Lord's Resistance Army committed one of its worst mass killings last week, slaughtering more than 200 civilians sheltering in a camp set up in northern Uganda to protect them from just such an attack.
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JOHANNESBURG - Namibia, which backs the seizure of white-owned land in nearby Zimbabwe, has said its own land reform efforts have moved too slowly, leaving farm workers destitute and 240,000 people awaiting resettlement.
Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab said the government was committed to seeing through its "willing buyer, willing seller" approach to redistribute land held by the white minority, but said it was cumbersome.
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BLANTYRE - Malawi's President Bakili Muluzi has named a new cabinet, dropping rival politicians as well as allies who failed to win constituency nominations for forthcoming general elections.
The reshuffle, announced late on Wednesday, is seen as Muluzi's last tweaking of government before the May 18 elections, when he must step down under the constitution after serving the maximum two terms -- a limit he tried and failed to have lifted to stay in power.
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SIRTE, Libya - African leaders gather on Friday for a summit to adopt a common defence policy and give the 53-nation African Union (AU) the right to intervene in armed conflicts across the continent, AU officials said.
But they said the two-day meeting in Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte would reject a Libyan proposal to disband all national armies in favour of one continental force.
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RIYADH - Sudan's foreign minister said in remarks published there were still differences in peace talks with southern rebels but a deal was possible.
Khartoum hopes to reach a peace accord with the Sudan People's Liberation Army to end more than two decades of civil war once the issues of how to share power in the oil-producing state and three disputed areas, including Abyei, are settled.
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OGUR, Uganda - Ugandan aid workers said they were overwhelmed by the needs of thousands of villagers, homeless and hungry after rebels burned their huts and massacred their friends in a terrifying nighttime attack.
Troops stood guard over a makeshift camp set up in open fields in the Ogur district, near the town of Lira, to protect traumatised people seeking help after fleeing into the bush last week amid a storm of grenade blasts, gunshots and fire.
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LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced he was setting up an international commission to propose solutions to Africa's problems.
The move comes roughly three years after Blair sought to draw attention to the continent's problems by describing Africa as the "scar on the conscience of the world."
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"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
