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Until November 2009, he was serving out his time as a low-key deputy from the south of the country to a low-key president from the north. But then, President Umaru Yar'Adua was taken to hospital in Saudi Arabia and was not seen again in public until he died on 5 May 2010. Step forward, Mr Jonathan. After months of political wrangling, Nigeria's elite finally accepted him as acting leader in February 2010 when the ailing president returned home, but remained too ill to govern. Barely 12 hours after Mr Yar'Adua's death, Mr Jonathan was sworn in as the new president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Africa's most populous nation - one of its most fractious democracies. Not bad for a man who had never been elected to major public office in his own right. He defied the governing People's Democratic Party's (PDP) tradition of alternating presidential power between north and south after two terms of office by winning the party's primaries. In ...

South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been jailed for five years for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa, issuing the ruling in court in Pretoria, also gave Pistorius a three-year suspended sentence for a firearms charge. Pistorius has been taken to the cells. The prosecution had called for a minimum 10-year sentence; the defence for community service and house arrest. Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide but cleared of murder. FEELING OF UNEASE Judge Masipa began reading the sentence by saying that, although she had been aided by assessors, the decision was hers and hers alone. She said: "Sentencing is about achieving the right balance. Sentencing is not a perfect exercise." She said there must be a balance between retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation. The judge then summarised the evidence brought before the trial. She described the evidence of defence witness and social worker Annette Vergeer as "slapdash and disap...