Lagos state passes smoking ban

The government said yesterday that it had not banned the smoking of shisha, a fruit-scented tobacco often smoked through an ornate water pipe as a social activity.

>It is easy to dismiss smokers as people who should simply be ignored since they are self-destructive, but the matter is not as simple as that. The health of a non-smoker seated next to a person who is smoking is endangered too.

Ugandan MPs pass a controversial anti-pornography bill, which will ban women from wearing miniskirts.

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Cigarette smoking is not the leading choice of leisure in Africa. Three years ago when the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued statistics, it was concluded that there were no figures for Africa.

A fence-mending deal signed this month by Somalia and Puntland has variously been hailed as a blueprint for stability and state-building in the wake of decades of civil war, and dismissed as a recipe for renewed inter-clan violence.

Legendary Ghanaian former footballer and coach C.K. Gyamfi, who led his country to three Nations Cup titles, dies at the age of 85.

The only polar bear in Africa has died from heart and liver failure at Johannesburg Zoo in South Africa at the age of 30.

Tunisia's parliament adopts a new constitution - the first since the ousting of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali three years ago.