ARTICLES RELATING TO
WEST AFRICA
Mali is aiming to raise €2bn at an international donor conference to fund its recovery after Islamist militants marched on Bamako this year, prompting a French military intervention.
Nigeria's president has declared a state of emergency across three north-eastern territories, because of ever-increasing guerrilla attacks by Islamic extremists.
The leader of an Islamic extremist group in Nigeria says his group has started kidnapping women and children, as part of its bloody guerrilla campaign against the country's government.
Nigerian gunmen have launched co-ordinated attacks on military barracks, a prison and police stations in the north-eastern town of Bama, killing 55 people and springing 105 inmates.
A Nigerian fighter jet taking part in military operations against al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militants in Mali has crashed in western Niger.
Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades, attacked a police station and a bank in northern Nigeria, killing three policemen and two civilians.
The Security Council is expected to approve a new UN peacekeeping force for Mali to help restore democracy and stabilize the country.
In a widening plot involving the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, the US has charged its coup leader with drug trafficking.
An 11 000-strong UN peacekeeping force will take over military duties from France in Mali on 1 July if the UN Security Council rules the conflict has eased enough.
Lawyers challenging Uhuru Kenyatta's victory in the presidential election say new technology meant to counter fraud had broken down, leading to a manipulated vote count.
Inter-communal clashes in Jos, in central Nigeria, have left at least 35 people dead and caused extensive damage to property, reports say.
France's defence minister said that their troops are involved in "very violent fighting" in the mountains of N Mali and that it's too early to pullout.
France says that a video of a kidnapped French family with their abductors, who claimed to be from Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, was a "shocking" display of the kidnappers' cruelty.
British C-17 aircraft are transporting Ghana troops and heavy equipment to help in Mali.
An explosion has shaken the largest city in northern Mali, hours after Islamist gunmen battled French and Malian troops.
