African and Caribbean

Sudan's upcoming elections must be as transparent as possible to prepare for a referendum on independence for the oil-rich south in 2011, but many obstacles remain, including continued conflict in Darfur, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Queen Elizabeth II gave South African President Jacob Zuma a ringing welcome at a state visit Wednesday, greeting him at Horse Guards Parade before a carriage procession to Buckingham Palace.

Rescuers in this remote corner of eastern Ugandan used hand tools Wednesday to dig through the thick rivers of mud that left more than 50 students missing under the debris and buried worshippers as they prayed in a church.

Cyncia Raymond Celestin and her husband, Guito, were about to buy their dream house in Miami Shores. They drove "his-and-hers" Mercedes. But in March, after much reflection, they gave up their cushy life and moved to Haiti.

After you get beyond the fact that Haiti, particularly Port-au-Prince, the capital, is a modern-day ruin — which is not easy to do when around each corner you encounter a more devastating scene

South African lawmakers sang Nelson Mandela's praises Thursday as the anti-apartheid icon settled into parliament's public gallery for a State of the Nation address scheduled in tribute to his 20 years of freedom.

When the earthquake struck, Marie Yvelene Boisdefer was at the soccer stadium, teaching a group of young women a dance routine they were going to debut during Haiti's pre-Lenten carnival festivities.

Fourteen-month-old Abigail Charlot survived Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake but not its miserable aftermath.

In 1995, only months after U.S. soldiers ejected military rulers from Haiti, then-U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., surveyed the decimated nation and warned: "The international community has a one-year plan and a 10-year challenge."