Police in Nigeria's southern Rivers State on Tuesday broke up a rally of the National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP) on grounds that they had not sought authorisation to hold the demonstration.

The intended de-gazettement of 170,000 acres of forest cover will be of an unprecedented magnitude since independence, a forest organisation has said.

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has ruled that President Robert Mugabe's land reform programme complies with the constitution.

Recently released government land reform proposals, which prohibit the foreign ownership of land, have received a cautious welcome in Malawi.

The government of Kenya has signed an exploration treaty with a British firm in a move that will see the world's deepest oil wells drilled off the East African coast. The deal is an attempt to expand the country's fuel supply as Kenya's public power firm announced the biggest loss in its history.