Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has pledged reconciliation after a highly divisive run-off in which she was the only candidate.

With 86% of the votes counted, Mrs Sirleaf is on 91% after her rival, Winston Tubman, boycotted the election.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has pledged reconciliation after a highly divisive run-off in which she was the only candidate.

With 86% of the votes counted, Mrs Sirleaf is on 91% after her rival, Winston Tubman, boycotted the election.

South Africa's governing ANC has found youth leader Julius Malema guilty of a minor offence at the start of his disciplinary hearing.

Mr Malema, 30, is accused of "sowing divisions" in the party and bringing it into disrepute by calling for a change of government in neighbouring Botswana.

Nigeria's first house built from discarded plastic bottles is proving a tourist attraction in the village of Yelwa.

Hundreds of people - including government officials and traditional leaders - have been coming to see how the walls are built in the round architectural shape popular in northern Nigeria.

Liberia's presidential run-off is being held despite at least one death during opposition protests and a boycott over fraud claims.

Opposition candidate Winston Tubman said he was pulling out of the vote, but the election commission urged Liberians to cast their ballots.

An Islamist group which has carried out deadly attacks in north-eastern Nigeria may be planning to bomb hotels in the capital, Abuja, the US embassy says.

The Hilton, Nicon Luxury and Sheraton hotels were named as possible targets of the Boko Haram group.

A suicide bomber has attacked the main military base in the northern-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, military sources have told the BBC.

The attacker died and one soldier was injured in the explosion at the headquarters of the Joint Task Force. There have been three other explosions on Friday, one outside a college, the Borno state police chief told AP.

Dozens of miners have been trapped in a coal mine in China after a "rock burst", officials say.

Four miners were killed and 50 more are missing after the accident, which happened late on Thursday in the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province.

At least two people have been shot dead and 11 wounded after gunmen launched an overnight attack on a church in northern Nigeria, officials say.

The attack happened in the Kaduna state town of Zonkwa, which saw serious violence after April's election.

A BBC World Service survey in 25 countries has found strikingly different attitudes to the economic outlook between rich and developing countries.

In the rich world, consumers were pessimistic, while in emerging economies people were more upbeat.

Australians have been expressing shock after a boat filled with asylum seekers capsized on its way from Indonesia, killing at least seven people.

Some 57 people, thought to be from Iran and Afghanistan, were rescued but many others are still missing.

Somalia's transitional government has said its forces, backed by Kenyan troops, have repulsed an attack by Islamist al-Shabab insurgents.

A Somali military spokesman told the BBC that they killed 36 insurgents in a counter-attack in the south.

The United Nations Security Council has expressed "concern" over the fate of the massive weapons stockpile built up in Libya under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The council called on Libya and its neighbours to stamp out the proliferation of looted arms.

Nato's mission over Libya is due to formally come to an end at one minute to midnight Libyan time on Monday.

It follows the unanimous vote last week at the UN Security Council to end internationally military operations after seven months.

It was supposed to be an ordinary night out with friends for 20-year-old Zukiswa Gaca but it ended with her lying on a railway track attempting to take her own life.

Gaca was at a bar, drinking with friends in Khayelitsha township, less than 40 kilometers outside Cape Town, South Africa, when a man tried to ask her out. "I told the guy that no I'm a lesbian so I don't date guys and then he said to me, 'no I understand. I've got friends that are lesbians, that's cool, I don't have a problem with that.'" 

NATO voted today to end its Libya mission on Oct. 31, although some members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may opt to continue providing assistance on an individual basis. But NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he didn't expect the military alliance itself to play a large role in post-war Libya, aside from potentially assisting with reform of its security sector, according to Reuters.

Violent protests have erupted in central Tunisia, after the results of the country's first democratic elections in decades were announced.

Police used tear gas against hundreds of people in Sidi Bouzid who were protesting against the cancellation of seats won by one of the parties.

Colonel Gaddafi's fugitive son Saif al-Islam today offered to hand himself in to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, according to a Libyan transitional government official.

The London-educated playboy, 39, is the last member of the hated despot’s family still feared to be at large in Libya.

A man on a list of wanted terror suspects has been arrested in Kenya's capital, the police chief says.

A cache of arms, including 13 hand grenades, an AK47, rifle, a machine gun, four pistols and ammunition were found in his flat in Nairobi, he said.

Gunmen have abducted three aid workers employed by the Danish Demining Group in north-central Somalia.

The Danish aid agency said a Somali national was taken along with two international staff members taken - a US woman and a Danish man.A Somali security official told reporters they were kidnapped near the airport at Galkayo town.