CAIRO/BRUSSELS - (Reuters) - After war broke out again in Libya early last year, a special team of EU diplomats in Tripoli was forced back to neighbouring Tunisia to do what they had been doing for several years: wait.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane announced his intention to resign on Thursday, the South African Broadcasting Corporation said in a news alert.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The European parliament has passed a resolution condemning Burundi for restricting freedom of expression and violating human rights ahead of elections due in May this year.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British prosecutor launched a fresh attempt on Thursday to confiscate tens of millions of pounds stolen from an oil-producing state in Nigeria by its former governor, who was convicted of laundering his loot in Britain.

DAKAR (Reuters) - A new law in Senegal that criminalises rape has come too late for one young woman. She was raped last year and is now trying to put her life back together with a baby.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)on Thursday said a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community are gravely food insecure following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is beginning to send troops into Libya in support of the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, days before a summit in Berlin which will address the Libyan conflict.

LISBON (Reuters) - Africa's richest woman and Angola's ex-first daughter Isabel dos Santos expressed interest on Thursday in running for the presidency despite an asset freeze and accusations of diverting more than a billion dollars of state money.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Islamist militants released three aid workers and other civilians in northeast Nigeria who had been held hostage since late December, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the country said on Thursday.

PARIS (Reuters) - France's armed forces minister said on Wednesday she would travel to Washington in the coming days to discuss U.S. military support to French forces in the Sahel region, amid growing concern of a U.S. exit from the area.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agreed on Wednesday to reconvene in Washington later this month to finalize an agreement on a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile that sparked a diplomatic crisis between Cairo and Addis Ababa.