Basin Radio Network

JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South African authorities say they are releasing up to 35,000 offenders to ease overcrowding in the nation's prisons.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - An aid agency says tens of thousands of refugees in South Sudan's Jamam camp must be urgently moved to a new site to escape life-threatening water shortages and fatal diseases.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The voices demanding that Congress stop the brutality of African warlord Joseph Kony belong to America's children. Just ask their parents.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - The party of the Zimbabwe president says elections can be held this year even if mediator-requested political reforms aren't made.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A lawyers group says police arrested a carpenter who questioned whether Zimbabwe's president still had the strength to blow up balloons at his 88th birthday celebrations.

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - A Liberian senator says the Senate will consider a bill to strengthen the West African nation's existing anti-gay laws.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's president says he reserves the right to disregard mediation efforts by South African President Jacob Zuma to settle disputes in the nation's troubled coalition.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A new report says that despite advances against hunger around the world, chronic childhood malnutrition remains largely overlooked and almost a half billion children are at risk of permanent damage over the next 15 years.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A group monitoring blood diamonds says profits from Zimbabwe's diamond fields are being stashed away by mining executives loyal to the authoritarian president.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South African police say 19 people were killed when an overtaking car smashed head-on into a minibus taxi as the nation's holiday accident toll continues to grow.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - The head of Nigeria's oil spill management agency says an offshore oil spill from a Royal Dutch Shell field is likely the worst in a decade.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Rising food prices are taking a toll in East Africa on low-income people who have the virus that causes AIDS.

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - The top European climate negotiator says the United States, China and India could scuttle a proposal to save the only treaty that has governed global warming emissions from the industrial world.

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - The U.N. weather office says world temperatures maintained a long-term upward trend and Arctic sea ice shrank to record low volumes this year.