FABE, Cameroon (Reuters) – It was a tough week for Cameroonian village chief Wangoe Philip Ekole.

People in Fabe, angry at his support for a palm-oil plantation in their rainforest home, had put a curse on its seedling nursery, prompting petrified workers to lay down their tools and flee.

FABE, Cameroon (Reuters) – It was a tough week for Cameroonian village chief Wangoe Philip Ekole.

People in Fabe, angry at his support for a palm-oil plantation in their rainforest home, had put a curse on its seedling nursery, prompting petrified workers to lay down their tools and flee.

DAKAR/BAMAKO (Reuters) – Tuareg-led rebels who seized the north of Mali in April declared on Sunday they had dropped their claims for a separate state after the rebellion was hijacked by al Qaeda-linked Islamists.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and its former Islamist allies routed government forces in the West African country three months ago and took over a stretch of the Sahara larger than France.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s wartime rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril called for the some 150 political parties in the North African nation to back the creation of a grand coalition government as election results were expected on Monday.

Joyful Libyans turned out in large numbers on Saturday for a largely peaceful national assembly election, their first free national poll after 42 years of Muammar Gaddafi which went ahead despite widespread fears of violence.

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Libya’s wartime rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril called for the some 150 political parties in the North African nation to back the creation of a grand coalition government, as election results were due to come in on Monday.

The call came as Libyans celebrated Saturday’s largely peaceful national assembly election, the first free national poll in Libya after 42 years of Muammar Gaddafi which went ahead despite widespread fears of violence.

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Libyans, relieved that their first free national election in 60 years had survived violence and protests, celebrated the chance to draw a line under Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship and forge a brighter future for their North African country.

While two deaths were reported as anti-election protesters sought to disrupt Saturday’s poll which they reject as a sham, the interim Libyan government and Western backers of last year’s uprising hailed it as an early triumph for democracy.

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Libyans, relieved that their first free national election in 60 years had survived violence and protests, celebrated the chance to draw a line under Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship and forge a brighter future for their North African country.

While two deaths were reported as anti-election protesters sought to disrupt Saturday’s poll which they reject as a sham, the interim Libyan government and Western backers of last year’s uprising hailed it as an early triumph for democracy.

DAKAR (Reuters) – Even blasé Parisians gaped as, one by one, a selection of some of the world’s most exotic sports cars emerged slowly out of a chic address a few steps from the Champs Elysees and were loaded onto a waiting transporter.

The Maserati, Bugatti and 14 other supercars were the toys of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, farm minister in a small central African country. But if their seizure by order of French judge last September was a cruel blow to a man with a self-confessed taste for luxury, he may have worse to come.

DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal’s Macky Sall has leapt back from the political wilderness with a crushing presidential run-off victory over incumbent Abdoulaye Wade that cements the West African country’s reputation as a stable democracy in a restive region.

Sall is a one-time prime minister who served under Wade but in 2008 lost favor with the outgoing octogenarian president known as “The Hare”, a local symbol of cunning. At one point, Sall seemed condemned to political obscurity.

DAKAR (Reuters) – President Adboulaye Wade accused foreign powers of being duped by his political rivals on Sunday after casting his ballot in Senegal’s most contentious poll in its recent history.

The 85-year-old leader, whose bid for a third term triggered deadly street riots in the normally peaceful West African country before a February first round, was urged by the United States and former colonial power France to give up power.