AFP - Teams from the Central African Republic's electoral commission have begun deploying throughout the country to prepare for a census that will begin on September 22, the organisation announced Friday.

AP - Congo's president has ordered a mining suspension in volatile eastern Congo.

AFP - Mozambique's telecom authority ordered cell phone operators to block all text messages, after a viral campaign sparked riots last week, independent media said Friday.

AP - International news agencies alarmed by South African proposals that could see reporters jailed should not fear freedoms are under attack, the president said Friday, adding that South Africa has one of the world's most progressive constitutions.

AFP - Striking pilots at Air Zimbabwe have been issued with a 24-hour ultimatum to return to work or face dismissal, state media said Friday.

AP - South African emergency officials say 31 people were injured when a passenger train crashed into a stationary goods train east of Johannesburg.

AP - The widow of independent Mozambique's first president says the debate over food in her impoverished homeland does not end with the government's reversal on bread prices.

AP - Two senior voting officials have been charged with vote tampering and sentenced to one year in prison a week before Guinea's crucial presidential vote, in a court proceeding that not even their lawyers were informed of and which is bound to increase tensions before the poll.

Reuters - A Darfur rebel group said on Thursday it was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas in Sudan's west.

Reuters - Nigerian security forces have freed two Russian sailors who were abducted from their vessel in the oil-producing Niger Delta a month ago, a senior security officer said on Thursday.