Nigeria's parliament empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa's most populous nation Tuesday in place of an ill and absent president, striving for a political end to a crisis that ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil ector.

Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan says he has assumed power as acting president.

Protesters torched a police station in western Ivory Coast while claiming their names had been removed from voter rolls in advance of this year's presidential election.

The European Union Naval Force says Somali pirates have freed a Panama-flagged cargo ship and its crew of 26 after a ransom was paid.

An international news channel is showing chilling footage of men in uniforms shooting unarmed men after they purportedly were arrested during clashes last year with Muslim militants in northern Nigeria.

Protesters have torched a library in an impoverished area of South Africa in what began as a march to call for more jobs.

A South African official says 13 children are dead after a fire tore through an orphanage early Tuesday.

White businesspeople in Zimbabwe who don't cede control of their companies to black partners could face jail under a law going into effect next month.

Top Somali officials are threatening to begin a military offensive against Islamist insurgents but critics — some of them demoralized soldiers — say a lack of equipment, funds and training put any ultimate success into doubt.

A Nigerian militant group claims to have attacked an oil pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the Niger Delta but oil company officials could not confirm the attack.