Somali forces clashed with al Qaeda-linked militants in the capital city Friday after the militants attacked an African Union peacekeeping station, according to an independent media report. Al Shabaab militants attacked the African Union Mission to Somalia headquarters in downtown Mogadishu, according to Somalia's independent Shabelle Radio. The attack sparked a firefight with government forces, Shabelle Radio said This is the latest fighting in Somalia's war-torn capital in the ongoing war between government forces and the Islamist militia. At least ...

South African teenager Caster Semenya won the women's 800 meters gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, just hours after the sport's governing body asked for the 18-year-old's gender to be verified. Semenya crushed her rivals by streaking away to secure victory in a time of one minute 55.45 seconds -- the best time in the world this year. Defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya took the silver with Briton Jennifer Meadows claiming bronze. However, the race was ...

A Russian-crewed cargo ship that went missing for more than two weeks was hijacked by pirates, Russia's defense minister said Tuesday. "The hijackers boarded the Arctic Sea, threatened the crew with weapons and demanded that their orders be followed," Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told President Dmitry Medvedev, according to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. Russian authorities announced Tuesday that they had opened a criminal investigation on charges of "kidnapping by an organized group of people," the Prosecutor General's ...

An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student. Dyron L. Hart, 20, of Poplarville, Mississippi, pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt to one count of communicating threats in interstate commerce, according to a Department of Justice statement. Hart admitted creating the fictitious account in November, pretending to be a white supremacist outraged by the election of ...

An Al Qaeda-linked militant group waging war against Somalia's fragile government is becoming an increasing threat to Western ally Kenya and could potentially destabilize the region with dire consequences for global security, officials and analysts warn. Al-Shabaab, one of the strongest Islamic militias battling for control of Mogadishu, has gained ground in recent weeks, according to officials, and has started to flex its muscles beyond Somalia's border with terror strikes, kidnappings and recruitment drives. They warn that unless the world ...

South African President Jacob Zuma has a problem: the very underclass that swept him into office last April on his promise to deliver them a better life have run out of patience, and they're venting their outrage on the streets. Little more than a year after the country's impoverished black townships erupted in a wave of violence directed at migrants from neighboring African countries, tires are once again burning on the streets as crowds protesting the lack of resources in their communities clash with police in ...

Boris Kodjoe owns a mansion in Atlanta. But when he goes to answer his door, the black actor knows what it's like to be an outcast. "When I'm opening the door of my own house, someone will ask me where the man of the house is, implying that I'm staff," said Kodjoe, best known for starring in Showtime's "Soul Food." It's a feeling some African-Americans say is all too common, even to this day in America: No matter your status ...

President Obama commended the progress of African-Americans in a speech on the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, but said there was still much work to be done. Speaking at the organization's annual convention in New York, the city where the organization was founded, Obama evoked symbols of the civil rights movement to describe the NAACP's influence on race relations in the United States. "What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that ...

More than 100 Africans protested outside a police station in southern China on Wednesday afternoon following the reported death of an African merchant during an alleged police raid, China's state-run media reported.

American leaders usually speak of Africa in the abstract, as a problem in need of solution: a place of epidemic, hunger, genocide or coup d'etat. On Saturday, Barack Obama, the first U.S. president of African descent, came to Ghana to speak about the continent in the personal and the particular, as his own ancestral homeland for which he now offered a vision. "I have the blood of Africa within me," he declared to cheers before the Ghanaian parliament. ...