Ivory Coast opposition leaders loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo should reconcile with the country's rulers, an opposition leader said Saturday.

"The opposition must accept the outstretched hand of power," said Laurent Dona Fologo, vice-president of the National Congress for the Resistance of Democracy, a coalition loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo.

The search for the world's first malaria vaccine received a boost with the release of early results from a major clinical trial showing it cut risk by about half in African children.

The vaccine known as RTS,S is made by the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline's lab in Belgium, and is the first of its kind to attempt to block a parasite, rather than bacteria or viruses.

Leandro Damiao's first half strike gave Brazil a 1-0 win over 10-man Ghana in a no-holds barred friendly here on Monday.

Damiao got the only goal with a clinical finish as the five-time world champions took advantage of extra space in the Ghana defense following Daniel Opare's dismissal.

Ghana will borrow $800 million from China to build natural gas infrastructure, the head of the national gas company said Friday, months after the country became Africa's newest major oil producer.

"An agreement has been reached and we have secured $800 million (560 million euros) from the Chinese Development Bank for the project to take off," George Sipa-Adzah Yankey told Agence France Presse on Friday.

She waited 1 1/2 hours at the hospital, only to see a nurse who yelled that she was "lying about being in labor." Three hours later, her baby was born dead.

Another woman gave birth on the street, steps away from a clinic that twice turned her away, saying her time had not come.

The sound may have been muted, but the fashion was not on the opening night of Dakar Fashion Week where models were forced to strut without music as organizers battled the government over copyright fees.

As the parade got underway Wednesday, an extremely fashionable three hours late, at the swanky Ozio restaurant in downtown Plateau, a gruff official with a clipboard ordered the DJ to turn off the music.

After months of post-election conflict ground their country to a halt, Ivorian designers hit the catwalk in Senegal this week with a burst of color and a determination to move on.

Two designers will showcase their creations at the ninth Dakar Fashion week which kicks off Wednesday night, among styles from Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Ghana, the United States and France.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry delegation, headed by foreign ministry director general Haitham Joumaa, began on Saturday evacuating Lebanese expatriates in the Ivory Coast from Abidjan airport to the airport in Ghana’s capital Accra.

Joumaa informed the National News Agency in a telephone call from Abidjan airport that a Boeing 737 has been rented to transport 200 passengers to Accra over a two-phase operation.

Seven men, including two Lebanese citizens, were charged with selling drugs and weapons in an effort to help the Taliban fight U.S. troops overseas.

Posing as representatives of the Taliban, cooperating witnesses for the Drug Enforcement Administration approached the men in Ghana last June, asking to set up a drug relationship, prosecutors said. First, the cooperators asked if they could buy large amounts of cocaine, according to court documents. Then, they asked if the men could set up safe places in West Africa to store heroin on its way from Afghanistan to the United States, Canada and Europe.