Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,300,000 km² (11,700,000 mi²) including adjacent islands, it covers 5.9% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.3% of the total land area.Sayre, April Pulley. (1999) Africa, Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 0-7613-1367-2. With more than 840,000,000 people (as of 2005) in 61 territories, it accounts for more than 12% of the world's human population.

Etymology

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The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra — "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) — for the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia.

The Afri were a tribe — possibly Berber — who dwelt in North Africa in the Carthage area. The origin of Afer may be connected with Phoenician `afar, dust (also found in most other Semitic languages). Some other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name 'Africa' that are much more debatable include:

More on [ Africa ]

BBC News | Africa | World Edition

Egypt leader enters football row
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:07:00 -0000
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak steps into a row with Algeria following violence over World Cup football matches.
Angola head urges action on graft
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:31:07 -0000
Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has called for a crackdown on government corruption.
Four on Hajj killed by swine flu
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:47:30 -0000
Four people, three of them Africans, die of swine flu on this year's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, reports say.
Sani Abacha son 'must pay $350m'
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:03:39 -0000
A Swiss court orders the seizure of $350m in assets from the son of Nigeria's ex-ruler Sani Abacha after a 10-year investigation.
'Many flee' Congo fishing clashes
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:41:15 -0000
More than 50,000 people flee DR Congo amid deadly ethnic clashes over fishing rights in the north-west, the UN says.
Yacht pair plead for ransom talks
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:41:17 -0000
A British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates say via video footage that they fear they may be killed within a week.

NYT > Africa

This Time, Egyptian Riot Over Soccer, Not Bread
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:30:33 -0000
History has proven there are two subjects that will move Egyptians into the streets in riotous numbers, crashing windows, battling each other and defying an army of club-wielding riot police.
China Helps the Powerful in Namibia
By SHARON LaFRANIERE Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:01:31 -0000
Secret scholarships to study in China that were awarded to the offspring of top officials in Namibia have angered the public there.
South Africa Is Divided on Gesture by Educator
By BARRY BEARAK Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:05:32 -0000
A pardon of four white students who were expelled for a racist video has incited outrage across South Africa.

L.A. Times - Africa

Vladimir Kramnik regains top form
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Position No. 6082: White to play and win. From the game Yun Fan-Rusudan Goletiani, U.S. Women's Championship, St. Louis 2009.
Venezuela's Chavez has praise for 'bad guys'
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
'Carlos the Jackal' was a revolutionary, says Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He also has kind words for Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. President Hugo Chavez is praising Ilich Ramirez Sanchez -- a.k.a. "Carlos the Jackal," the imprisoned Venezuelan once notorious for a series of Cold War-era bombings, assassinations and hostage dramas -- saying he was a "revolutionary fighter" and not a terrorist.
Children starve in parched southern Madagascar
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
As temperatures rise, drought, crop failure and deforestation have combined to create a crisis of malnutrition. Foreigners have come to Anjandobo village, a cluster of wooden huts on the desolate red dust of southern Madagascar. They're vaza -- outsiders.

UN News Centre - Africa

Xenophobic attacks in South Africa draw condemnation from UN agency
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
The United Nations refugee agency today condemned the latest xenophobic attacks that have driven some 3,000 foreigners, including refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe, from a community in South Africa.
Kenyan youth shoot for peace in UN-backed football ‘reconciliation contest'
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
More than 2,000 Kenyan youths from across Nairobi, the capital, will kick off a multi-ethnic football tournament this weekend to score goals in a United Nations-backed bid to use the power of sport to promote reconciliation after last year's deadly inter-communal violence as well as environmental conservation.
Industrialization will help Africa fully join world economy, says Ban
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
Armed conflict, inadequate infrastructure, weak governance, limited financing and technological abilities, and policies that stifle entrepreneurship, limit competition and raise the cost of doing business are hindering the industrialization that Africa needs to fully join the global economy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today.

The Economist: Middle East and Africa

Congo's constitution: Democracy under threat
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:39:48 -0000
Is Congo’s President Joseph Kabila flirting with dictatorship?AFTER 32 years of rapacious dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko and nearly a decade of chaos following his demise in 1997, Congo’s elections in 2006 marked the first time the people of the former Belgian colony had gone to the polls in a free and fair vote for four decades. It was a rare moment of hope for a better future. But the latest signs are less auspicious. In recent parliamentary sessions, it emerged that President Joseph Kabila had called for a special constitutional review commission to consider amending Congo’s four-year-old charter. Among various suggestions, it may ask for presidential terms to be extended from five to seven years and perhaps for term limits to be junked altogether. Another idea being touted is for the president to become head of the Superior Council of Magistrates, the country’s most powerful judicial body. But the constitution specifically forbids amendments in all of those areas.In the past three years the 38-year-old president has shown increasingly little interest in living up to the democratic promise that impressed the West when he won at the polls in 2006. Not that such hopes lasted very long. Just a few months after he was sworn in, he brought the opposition to heel by defeating fighters loyal to Jean-Pierre Bemba, who came second in the presidential contest, in deadly street battles in the capital, Kinshasa. Soon afterwards he clamped down on parliament’s largest opposition group, which is led by Mr Bemba, who is anyway due next year to stand trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. ...
Sierra Leone's corruption problem: A mortal enemy
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:39:48 -0000
The government is having some rare success in trying to eradicate an old soreIN MOST African countries, the fight against corruption is deemed important but hardly a matter of life and death. In Sierra Leone it is exactly that. In 1991 the country descended into one of Africa’s most terrible civil wars. It lasted a decade or so, killed tens of thousands of people and spawned a new lexicon of words and images that shocked the world: “blood diamonds”, drugged-up child soldiers, warlords and militiamen amputating the hands of their victims for doing nothing worse than voting. At the end of it all, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission appointed by the government decided that one of the war’s main causes had been the rampant corruption that had infested every level of government in the preceding decades. If Sierra Leone was to avoid a repeat of the 1990s, corruption was the biggest vice to be eradicated. ...
Yemen's war: Pity those caught in the middle
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:39:48 -0000
A bitter local conflict threatens to spread across the regionMUHAMMAD REDWAN and his family were being hammered from all sides. In early August, rebels from Yemen’s Houthi clan took over his village in the rugged mountains of the Malahid district, near the border with Saudi Arabia. First they harassed him, telling him not to listen on his television to music that “contradicted the values of Islam”. Then they told him he was “praying in the wrong way”— with arms raised, as is the custom elsewhere in Yemen. But then he got squeezed from another side, when Saudi armed forces, entering Yemen from across the border, issued warnings by loudspeaker. “If you want to stay alive, leave your homes immediately,” they blared. A 35-year-old smuggler, Mr Redwan took the hint. After a three-day journey of 100km (62 miles)—by donkey, in a truck and finally by foot—he, his wife and six children managed to reach Mazrak Camp, south-west of the regional capital, Saada. This is where more than 10,000 recently displaced Yemenis now languish in misery. The UN-run camp cannot cope with the thousands of people who are arriving every week. Tens of thousands of other displaced people have recently sought refuge in villages and towns scattered across a swathe of northern Yemen. ...

NYT > Africa

This Time, Egyptian Riot Over Soccer, Not Bread
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:30:33 -0000
History has proven there are two subjects that will move Egyptians into the streets in riotous numbers, crashing windows, battling each other and defying an army of club-wielding riot police.
China Helps the Powerful in Namibia
By SHARON LaFRANIERE Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:01:31 -0000
Secret scholarships to study in China that were awarded to the offspring of top officials in Namibia have angered the public there.
South Africa Is Divided on Gesture by Educator
By BARRY BEARAK Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:05:32 -0000
A pardon of four white students who were expelled for a racist video has incited outrage across South Africa.
Forest People May Lose Home in Kenyan Plan
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:38:28 -0000
Officials are gearing up to evict tens of thousands from the Mau Forest, in a government conservation effort that has raised suspicion.
Somalis’ Money Is Lifeline for Homeland
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:03:51 -0000
A growing network of companies distributes money from the nation’s large diaspora, providing a crucial safety net.
World Briefing | Africa: Somalia: Video Plea by British Couple Held by Pirates
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:24:38 -0000
A retired British couple snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates said in a video broadcast Friday that they feared they could be killed within a week or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom demand was not paid.

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