An al-Qaida group tightened its grip on a Yemeni coastal town while in the capital Sanaa a truce was holding on Sunday to end nearly a week of deadly street fighting that threatened to ignite a civil war.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, on Monday warned Nigeria against population explosion, saying the current figure of 158 million could balloon to 730 million by 2100.

The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped 46 percent in the first quarter when mass protests ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the government's statistics agency said on Sunday.

Nigeria's House of Representatives passed a bill to create a sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday, paving the way for Africa's biggest oil exporter to improve its management of often-squandered crude oil earnings.

The African economy will grow by 5 percent in 2011 as it steps up its recovery from the global crisis, but the new spurt will not be enough to significantly cut jobless rates, the U.N. said Monday.

Zimbabwe's central bank said it planned to take punitive measures against foreign-owned banks that resist demands to transfer majority shareholding to local black populations under a controversial empowerment policy.

The world aviation control body says it has suspended Zimbabwe's embattled, debt-ridden national airline from international financial and flight booking services.

Libya's biggest oil company will not resume production until the war ends, and that probably holds good for producers across the country, the firm's information director told The Associated Press on Sunday.

South Africa's net gold and foreign exchange reserves rose in April to US$46.04 billion, from 44.73 billion the previous month, data released Monday by the Reserve Bank showed.

Africa needs to develop new global ties that deepen the continent's role in the world economy, South African President Jacob Zuma told the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.