Loud explosions and gunfire have rocked Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri, which has seen growing violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

There is no winner this year for the world's most valuable individual prize - the Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is holding its first public hearing in the case of one of the sons of Libyan leader Col Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam.

West African states are imposing immediate sanctions on Mali, Ivory Coast's president has announced.

Alassane Ouattara, current head of regional body Ecowas, said it had closed borders to trade and frozen Mali's access to bank accounts.

There has been widespread condemnation of Mali's troops, after they ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure.

The UN Security Council called for the "immediate restoration of constitutional rule and the democratically elected government".

Rebel troops have appeared on Malian state TV to announce they have seized control of the country, hours after attacking the presidential palace.

The rebels said that a nationwide curfew was in force and that the constitution had been suspended.

About six people have been killed in Somalia after mortars landed on a refugee camp near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, officials say.

A family of four were among those killed, a witness told the AFP news agency.

Turkey has urged its citizens to leave Syria, saying developments there have led to "serious security risks".

The foreign ministry said in a statement that some consular services would be halted on 22 March.

Eritrea has said it will not be "entrapped" into retaliating after Ethiopia launched a cross-border border raid on three military bases.

"It is those who do not know the price of war who are hungry to go to war," Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu told the AFP news agency.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to deliver its first verdict, in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Thomas Lubanga.

Mr Lubanga is charged with recruiting and using child soldiers in north-eastern DR Congo in 2002 and 2003.

The number of people killed in South Sudan in the latest of a series of cattle raids has risen to more than 200, officials have told the BBC.

Jonglei state governor Kuol Manyang said at least 223 people had been confirmed dead.

At least 10 people were killed after a Catholic church was targeted by suicide car bombers in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos, officials say.

The bomber detonated explosives after being stopped at the church gates.

Urgent action is needed to stop drought in West Africa's Sahel region turning into a humanitarian disaster affecting 13 million people, Oxfam says.

The charity says the international community waited too long to respond to famine in East Africa last year.

A Mexican Supreme Court judge has said that Frenchwoman Florence Cassez, who is serving a 60-year sentence for kidnapping, should be released.

Judge Arturo Zaldivar argued that Ms Cassez, 37, had been denied her consular rights and the right to be presumed innocent.

A man has pleaded guilty to breaking into a teenage girl's home and locking her to a fake bomb in Australia in August last year.

Paul Douglas Peters, 50, appeared via video-link in a Sydney court and his lawyer entered the plea on his behalf.

A campaign by US activists to capture alleged Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony has gone viral on the web.

Invisible Children's half-hour film on the use of child soldiers by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army has been viewed nearly 10m times on YouTube.

India's junior defence minister has said the row over the age of the army chief, General VK Singh, was an "unfortunate development".

Pallam Raju said the "unhealthy precedent" did not "augur well either for the defence ministry or the army".

A key suspect in the Christmas Day bombing which killed at least 38 people in Nigeria has escaped from custody, police have admitted.

Kabiru Sokoto - believed to be a member of the Islamist sect Boko Haram - was arrested on Saturday in the capital Abuja after police trailed him.

Thousands of needless deaths occurred from famine in East Africa last year because the international community failed to heed early

warnings, say two leading British aid organisations.

Nigerian anti-corruption officers have raided the offices of the agency which regulates the sale of fuel, as people return to work after the end of a week-long strike over the cost of petrol.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission says items were confiscated as an investigation into alleged fraud in the importation of fuel begins.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest producer of oil but imports refined fuel. The strike was called after a subsidy on the cost of fuel was removed.