Nurses in Burundi's public hospitals resumed work on Friday after a month-long strike, following the signing of an agreement between their trades union and the government. The nurses' strike had paralysed health services in the hospitals.

The Angolan ambassador to South Africa says political conditions in his country "needed to be normalised first", before the government could address the issue of fiscal transparency. In response to comments by Doug Steinberg, the outgoing country director of the development agency, CARE, ambassador Isaac Maria dos Anjos told IRIN that making transparency a condition for holding a donor conference - to help fund Angola's reconstruction effort - was "uncalled for".

An ambitious plan to hire an average of 9,000 new teachers a year in Mozambique is expected to ease the workload of existing educators and improve the quality of education, a senior official told IRIN. "The teachers at the moment are overburdened," Telesfero de Jesus of the ministry of education said. Severe staff shortages meant many teachers had to teach two shifts.

In the latest corruption scandal to rock Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo has cancelled the sale of 207 government houses at knockdown prices after discovering that close relatives of his wife and several cabinet ministers were to have been among the beneficiaries of this controversial deal. Obasanjo last week ordered Mobolaji Osomo, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, to cancel the planned sale of these houses on well-to-do estates in Lagos, the commercial hub of Nigeria.

The electoral commission of the Central African Republic (CAR) announced on Sunday that 17 of 105 parliamentary seats were filled during the first round of general elections. The chairman of the Mixed Independent Electoral Commission, Jean Willibiro-Sacko, said the rest would be contested during a second round of elections, set for 1 May. A run-off presidential poll, pitting CAR leader Francois Bozizé against former Prime Minister Martin Ziguelé, will also be held on the same day.