Africa, President | featured news

Kenya's presidential race tightened on Friday as Uhuru Kenyatta's lead narrowed over his main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, raising the prospect of a second-round run-off.

President Mohamed Morsi apparently secured a victory at the polls Saturday for a new Egyptian constitution, locking the country into a bitter contest between his ascendant Islamist camp and his secular opponents.

Ghana's electoral authorities said incumbent leader John Dramani Mahama won a new term as president in the West African state in an election the opposition said was marred by tampering.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi declared extensive political powers for himself on Thursday, taking broad and sweeping control of his country a day after he won international praise for fostering a ceasefire in Gaza.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday purged the nation's military leadership in a provocative move to expand his power and push aside generals who epitomized the inner circle of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s dissolved parliament defied a court order and reconvened Tuesday, escalating the power struggle between the newly elected Islamist president and the military over the political future of a nation still tangled in the legacy of toppled leader Hosni Mubarak.

Mohamed Morsi was formally sworn in on Saturday as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, marking a new stage in an ever murkier struggle to define the future of the nation.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a Gulf initiative on Wednesday to hand over power to his deputy as part of a proposal to end months of protests that have pushed the Arab country to the brink of civil war.

Africa's first democratically elected female president, a Liberian campaigner against rape and a woman who stood up to Yemen's autocratic regime won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in recognition of the importance of women's rights in the spread of global peace. The Norwegian Nobel Committee split the prize between Tawakkul Karman, a leader of anti-government protests in Yemen; Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to win a free presidential election in Africa; and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, who campaigned against the use of rape as a weapon in her country's brutal civil war.

Alassane Ouattara has been inaugurated as Ivory Coast's president after months of violence and political turmoil.