AFP - Senior MPs from north and south Sudan are heading for Canada this weekend to learn from Quebec's independence referendums, officials said Friday, as the African state prepares to vote on southern secession.

Reuters - The U.N. Security Council extended the stay of peacekeepers in Sudan's western Darfur region by another year on Friday, telling the force to focus primarily on protecting civilians and aid deliveries.

AFP - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday lauded international efforts to achieve lasting peace and political stability in crisis-wracked Guinea-Bissau, his office said.

AFP - The UN Security Council on Friday extended by a year the mandate of a joint UN-African Union force in strife-torn Darfur, stressing the need to protect civilians and ensure safe humanitarian access.

AFP - Thousands of southern Sudanese gathered at the grave of their first president John Garang on Friday in memory of those killed in a 22-year war with the north, six months before an independence vote.

AFP - The government of Zimbabwe has failed to build houses and provide jobs to victims of mass evictions five years ago that left thousands homeless and unemployed, a human rights group said Friday.

AFP - Presidential and parliamentary elections will take place in the Central African Republic next January 23, President Francois Bozize decreed on Friday.

AFP - King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Thursday granted pardons or reduced sentences to nearly 1,000 people to mark his 11 years on the throne, the justice ministry said.

AFP - A Russian helicopter pilot who went missing in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region was returned to his UN peacekeepers' base on Thursday, as Moscow said he had been taken prisoner and freed.

AFP - Three people were killed Wednesday during a gun battle between supporters of rival rebel groups in a camp for displaced people in west Darfur, a UN spokesman said Thursday.

AFP - A referendum in south Sudan on possible independence cannot he held as planned in January unless the border between north and south is demarcated in advance, a senior official of Sudan's ruling party said on Thursday.

AFP - Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) financial regulator has vowed to haul 260 organisations and individuals, including banks, before a tribunal for alleged fraudulent share activities.

AFP - President Jacob Zuma announced Thursday that South Africa would stop recognising half the nation's traditional kings and queens, dismissing them as artificial creations of the apartheid regime.

AFP - Hardline Somali Islamist rebels promised Thursday to turn Mogadishu into a graveyard for the extra troops African Union sends to boost its force in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.