The Algerian parliament late on Wednesday elected unanimously Slimane Chenine, an Islamist-oriented lawmaker, as the new speaker of the People's National Assembly, lower house of the parliament.
Elisha Abbo, the Nigerian senator involved in a fight in a sex shop in the capital, Abuja, refused to be placed under oath when he appeared before a panel set up by his fellow senators.
The aid charity Oxfam says that inequality is at crisis levels in West Africa but accuses many governments in the region of ignoring the issue, despite economic growth.
Elisha Abbo, 41, a Nigerian senator who hit a woman in a sex toy shop in the capital, Abuja, has apologised, saying: "I have never been known or associated with such actions in the past."
Authorities in Switzerland have handed suspended sentences to at least five members of Cameroon President Paul Biya's security team, after they were arrested on Tuesday in Geneva for an alleged assault on a journalist.
At least 50 people were killed in Nigeria when fuel from a crashed truck that they were siphoning up caught fire, a spokesman for the governor in central Benue state said on Tuesday.
