Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party should be reformed, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Friday in a speech that may open the door to a national unity government. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the March 29 parliamentary election with a slim majority, handing ZANU-PF its worst defeat since President Robert Mugabe led it to power after independence from Britain in 1980.

The exiled leader of Burundi's last rebel group returned to the capital on Friday to begin implementing a stalled deal seen as the final obstacle to peace in the tiny central African country. Agathon Rwasa, leader of the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), arrived at Bujumbura airport with the South African mediator for talks between his ethnic Hutu group and Burundi's ethnically mixed but Hutu-led government.

Deficient food supplies, inadequate fresh water and geopolitical risks are among the major threats to sustainable economic growth in Africa, a report released on Friday showed. Anger over high food prices has sparked protests in several African countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Senegal.

The U.N. Security Council is to debate a new resolution next month that aims to enshrine sexual violence as a security issue for the first time, senior diplomats said. Backers of the resolution, to be discussed in a session chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 19, argue it is needed because sexual violence in conflict zones -- a war crime -- has not often been made a priority.

International aid groups are rushing to provide assistance to tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians displaced by fighting in the disputed oil-rich Abyei area before seasonal rains hamper aid flows, aid groups said. Civilians fled the central town of Abyei during over a week of clashes between northern and southern troops earlier in May, prompting fears of further conflict just at the onset of the rainy season.