JOHANNESBURG, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Collated African youth championship third round, first leg qualifying results on Monday:

Cameroon 0 Congo (holders) 0

Botswana 1 South Africa 1

Ivory Coast 1 Burkina Faso 0

Second leg: Oct 10-12

Note: Winners and hosts Rwanda qualify for final tournament

VIENNA, Sept 24, 2008 (AFP) - Austria's political parties are falling over themselves to win the hearts -- and votes -- of teenagers and students in the upcoming general election, the first in which under-18s are allowed to vote.

In 2007, Austria passed a law lowering the voting age to 16 from 18, giving the vote to around 93,000 more young people.

SAN FRANCISCO, September 11, 2008 (AFP) - In what could have been a sequel to one of his own smash television shows, Ashton Kutcher played celebrity-geek this week as he launched an irreverent gossip website for girls.

MONROVIA, September 10, 2008 (AFP) - Participants at a Monrovia international workshop called Wednesday for practical strategic partnerships between African countries, civil society organisations and development partners 'to make decent work a reality in Africa'.

VATICAN CITY, September 9, 2008 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI sent a text message to the participants of World Youth Day asking them to pray for the young people in France which he will visit shortly, the Vatican said Tuesday in a statement.

World Youth Day took place July 15-21 in Sydney and is organised by the Roman Catholic Church as a meeting place for young Catholics.

BOGOTA, September 8, 2008 (AFP) - More than two young people in three in Latin America feel they are discriminated against, many because they come from poor backgrounds or lack education, a study by two regional groups says.

WASHINGTON, September 2, 2008 (AFP) - Teen suicides in the United States jumped sharply in 2004 and 2005, researchers said Tuesday, with the disturbing increase sparking confusion and concern among doctors and parents.

The increase came after more than a decade of decline, and when researchers first took notice of the shift upward in 2004, they thought it might be an anomaly.

HELSINKI, August 29, 2008 (AFP) - A Finnish court on Friday sentenced a teenage girl to five years in custody for hiring a hitman to kill her mother.

Elina Mikkola was 16 when she ordered the hit, which her mother survived, earlier this year.

BEIJING, August 29, 2008 (AFP) - Around four million Chinese youngsters are addicted to the Internet, mainly attracted by 'unhealthy' online games, state media reported Friday, citing a top legislator.

VIENNA, August 27, 2008 (AFP) - The Austrian government launched a campaign Wednesday to encourage 16-to-18 year-olds to vote in the September 28 general election -- a first in a national ballot.

BEIJING, August 25, 2008 (AFP) - Less than a day after the closing of the Olympics, state media in China tried Monday to give the nation's Internet-savvy youth a new label: The Bird's Nest Generation.

England football icon David Beckham on Monday pleaded with the country`s youths to end the wave of ...

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Singapore was told Wednesday it has 'no time to lose' in starting operations for the inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games.

The IOC Co-ordination commission chairman Sergey Bubka said operational planning should begin by the end of September, adding that rising costs had already forced one change in plans.

BANGKOK, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - Valee Pancharoen watched her son transform as he became a teenager, first painting his nails, then wearing a wig and, finally, the dresses he had been wearing for years but hiding from his parents.

PARIS, July 25, 2008 (AFP) - A 16-year-old French girl arrested in connection with a bank robbery is suspected of involvement in a series of other hold-ups, a court official said Friday.

A judge at a court in Creteil on the outskirts of Paris remanded her in custody following requests by the prosecution.

LONDON, July 24, 2008 (AFP) - A teenager appeared in court Thursday to plead not guilty to the murder of an 11-year-old British boy, whose death sparked soul-searching here about the extent of gun and gang violence among youngsters.

LAKE SELIGER, July 22, 2008 (AFP) - Military training, satirical shows and US-style business seminars were among the strange mix of activities on offer at this year's summer camp for Nashi -- the Kremlin's youth movement.

LONDON, July 20, 2008 (AFP) - Britain is struggling to get to grips with a surge of fatal knife attacks, which analysts say reflects a growing sense of insecurity on the country's streets.

While some say young people are increasingly carrying knives as a fashion item, others say it is simply because they are scared of being attacked and so make sure they are armed.

PHNOM PENH, July 20, 2008 (AFP) - Prime Minister Hun Sen is expected to dominate next Sunday's election in Cambodia, but opposition parties think they have found the chink in his armour: the youth vote.

More than 53 percent of Cambodian voters are younger than 30, according to the National Election Committee.

LONDON, July 20, 2008 (AFP) - Britain is struggling to get to grips with a surge of fatal knife attacks, which analysts say reflects a growing sense of insecurity on the country's streets.

While some say young people are increasingly carrying knives as a fashion item, others say it is simply because they are scared of being attacked and so make sure they are armed.

LONDON, July 18, 2008 (AFP) - British police confirmed Friday that a youth found stabbed in south London the previous evening was 18 years old, making him the 21st teenager to violently die in the capital.

BRUSSELS, July 17, 2008 (AFP) - The European Commission warned children and teenagers on Thursday to beware of mobile telephone ring-tone scams after hundreds of Internet sites were found to be charging too much for the services.

SYDNEY, July 13, 2008 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Sydney for World Youth Day is a bigger event than its hosting of the Olympics in 2000 and will temporarily transform Australia's glitziest city, organisers say.

LONDON, July 12, 2008 (AFP) - Britain's government on Sunday announced new shock tactics to tackle growing concern about knife crime, including forcing young people caught with weapons to confront stabbing victims.

LONDON, July 7, 2008 (AFP) - A 14-year-old boy who was stabbed nearly three weeks ago in south London has died in hospital, police said Monday, taking the toll of teenagers killed by knives in the British capital this year to 14.

MINSK, July 7, 2008 (AFP) - Immersed in a tense game of cat and mouse with the authorities, Artur Finkevich, a 23-year-old democracy activist from Belarus, seems a throwback to a past age of anti-Communist struggle.

LONDON, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - London is experiencing an epidemic of knife crime with 13 teenagers stabbed to death this year and two French students murdered in a brutal attack, leaving police apparently powerless to stop it.

LONDON, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - A 16-year-old boy who was stabbed in south London has died of his injuries, police said Friday, taking the number of teenagers killed by knives in the British capital this year to 18.

LONDON, July 3, 2008 (AFP) - British police charged three teenagers on Thursday with the murder of Ben Kinsella, the brother of a British television actor, who was stabbed outside a London bar over the weekend.

LONDON, July 1, 2008 (AFP) - Four youths have been arrested over the death of the brother of a British television actor, who was stabbed outside a London bar in the latest of a spate of teenage knife killings, police said Tuesday.

LONDON, June 30, 2008 (AFP) - A British television star made an emotional plea Monday for youngsters to 'put down your knives' after her brother became the 17th teenager violently killed in London this year.

LONDON, June 30, 2008 (AFP) - Tributes were being paid Monday to the brother of a television star after he became the 17th teenager to die as a result of violence in London this year.

Ben Kinsella, 16, was knifed in a north London street in the early hours of Sunday morning following a brawl at a bar. He died later in hospital.

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 (AFP) - Cigarette smoking among US teenagers is no longer declining, after dropping steadily from 1997 to 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Sunday.

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2008 (AFP) - A teenager in the state of Georgia was decapitated when struck by an amusement park ride, US media reported Sunday.

The Atlanta Constitution newspaper reported that the 17-year old was struck and killed Saturday by the popular 'Batman the Ride' at a Six Flags amusement park in the southern US town of Over, Georgia.

TEHRAN, June 10, 2008 (AFP) - A major Iranian state-owned company has told its single employees to get married by September or face losing their jobs, the press reported on Tuesday.

'One of the economic entities in the south of the country has asked its single employees to start creating a family,' the hardline Kayhan daily reported.

CHICAGO, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - US teens are having less sex, doing fewer drugs and smoking fewer cigarettes than those who grew up in the 1990s, a study released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found.

PARIS, June 3, 2008 (AFP) - It may have something to do with the world champions' love of cagey football, the 'catenaccio' cat and mouse variant they patented, that Italy arrive at Euro 2008 with the oldest squad.

SARAJEVO, May 18, 2008 (AFP) - Following a decade of wars and ensuing social and economic decline, Balkan countries find themselves ill-equipped to handle growing juvenile crime and delinquency.

In 2007, youngsters were responsible for 10 percent of all known offences committed in Bosnia and Serbia, and five percent in Croatia, official statistics show.

OTTAWA, May 16, 2008 (AFP) - Canada's top court on Friday ruled that children must be treated with softer gloves than adults in its justice system, making it harder to impose harsh penalties on criminal youth.