Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Monday that Europe had shown `total contempt` for his country by arresting one of his key aides suspected of involvement in the death of a former ruler.

Authorities in Somalia`s breakaway region of Puntland on Sunday yanked a radio station off the air over allegations that it carried a bogus news report, police and staff members said.

Police said Radio Galkayo aired a baseless news item that Puntland President Musse Adde, who visited Galkayo township on Sunday, was collecting arms from government stores.

Islamist militants on Sunday attacked local clan fighters manning a checkpoint in southern Somalia, touching off clashes that claimed two lives, witnesses said.

Heavily-armed Islamic Courts Union militants clashed with their rivals loyal to the former Lower Shabelle administration at a checkpoint near Elashabiyaha town, 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu.

Mauritanian authorities picked up 66 illegal immigrants trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands by sea after their boat broke down, a source in the security services said Sunday.

Guinea Bissau voted Sunday in parliamentary elections that international observers hope will boost stability in a poor west African nation which has become a hub for South American drug traffickers.

Polls closed in Guinea Bissau`s parliamentary elections on Sunday with international observers hoping the vote will boost stability in the impoverished west African nation.

Polling stations officially closed at 5:00 pm (1700 GMT) while some that opened late allowed some voters to cast their ballots for the 100-seat parliament a little after the deadline.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner held talks with her Algerian counterpart Sunday during a two-day visit aimed at bolstering trade and which is part of a tour of northern Africa.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika welcomed Kirchner when she arrived in the late morning before the face-to-face talks that preceded discussions between the two country`s delegations.

Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein on Sunday accused the president of blocking the creation of a new cabinet, undermining efforts to restore stability in the lawless country.

Members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) were recently engaged in a gun duel with the Niger Delta militants in a bloody shoot-out in the Nigeria oil-rich creeks of Bayelsa State.

According to The Punch

Traffic through the Suez Canal was halted briefly on Sunday after a collision between a Panamanian cargo ship and an Egyptian passenger ferry, a canal official told AFP.

There were no injuries reported in the accident, which happened near the Red Sea entrance of the waterway and closed the canal for just half an hour.

Basic facts about the west African state of Guinea-Bissau, which holds parliamentary elections on Sunday:

GEOGRAPHY: Wedged between Senegal to its north and Guinea to its south and east, Guinea-Bissau gives onto the westernmost Atlantic seaboard of the African continent.

The Sudanese military said on Sunday that troops clashed with thieves in Darfur as the Khartoum regime vowed to flush bandits out of the violence-torn region regardless of a ceasefire.

A Russian warship has stopped an attempted hijacking by Somali pirates of a Saudi ship in the Gulf of Aden, military officials said Sunday.

`Russian frigate Neustrashimy (Fearless) stopped an attempted hijack of a Saudi Arabian vessel by a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden,` the Russian navy said.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned Sunday that President Robert Mugabe would cause the collapse of a power-sharing agreement if he imposes a unity government.

`He would have literally collapsed the deal,` Tsvangirai told AFP in Stasbourg, northern France, during a rare visit to Europe.

Voters in Guinea Bissau went to the polls on Sunday in elections which international observers hope will stabilize the tiny West African country that has become a hub for South American drug traffickers.

Early polling for the 100-seat parliament was running smoothly, according to observers.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned Sunday that negotiations on a power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe must not be allowed to run on indefinitely.

`It can`t be forever,` Tsvangirai told AFP in Strasbourg, northern France, during a rare visit to Europe. `We cannot go on and on and on.`

Police have arrested a Swaziland opposition leader as part of a crackdown under the country`s anti-terrorism laws, his family said Sunday.

People`s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) leader Mario Masuku was arrested Saturday and was being held in eastern Swaziland 180 kilometres from the capital, his son Mzwandile told AFP.

NAIROBI, Nov 18, 2007 (AFP) - Communication has been lost with a Comoran-flagged cargo ship captured by pirates off the Somali coast last month, raising fears of the crew safety, a maritime monitoring group said on Saturday.

The MV Al Marjan, with 22 mostly Asian crew members on board, was seized on October 19 as it sailed to Mogadishu port from the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai.

'We are worried that the ship has cut communication with the owner and the rest of the world,' said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

KAMPALA, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Ugandan rebels said Saturday they had apologised to survivors of a massacre of some 400 civilians their fighters carried out in northern Uganda three years ago.

Santa Okot of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said the rebels toured the camp in Uganda's Lira district Friday and apologised to widows and orphans of the February 2004 killings, in which their fighters mowed down fleeing civilians and burned them alive. The attack was one of the country's deadliest in years.

TRIPOLI, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Mauritanian President Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on Saturday at the start of visit to Tripoli aimed at boosting relations after years of tension.

The trip comes ahead of a European-African conference in Lisbon and aims to strengthen ties which cooled when Mauritania accused Libya of supporting attempts to destabilise the country.

RABAT, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Morocco's justice ministry said Saturday it had not received four arrest warrants reportedly issued by Interpol for senior Moroccan officials in connection with the 1965 disappearance of opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka.

A ministry statement also strongly criticised the conduct of the French probe into the abduction of Ben Barka, a charismatic foe of Morocco's late king Hassan II who has not been seen since he was snatched on a Paris street and is widely believed to be dead.

WEDMADANI, Sudan, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - President Omar al-Beshir on Saturday ordered the reopening of auxiliary training camps in Sudan to prepare for war and refused to accept certain countries from sending peacekeepers to Darfur.

In a fiery speech to his Arab heartland, Beshir spoke as a political crisis threatens peace between north and south Sudan, and toughened his stance against US criticism that Khartoum is obstructing a UN-African Union peace mission.

MOGADISHU, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Somali rebels attacked a camp of Ugandan peacekeepers from the African Union in Mogadishu overnight, triggering hours of heavy fighting that left at least one insurgent dead, the AU said Saturday.

'They fired rocket-propelled grenades into our base (in Mogadishu's K-4 neighbourhood), but we killed one of them. We have a duty to defend ourselves,' AU spokesman Paddy Ankunda told AFP. 'We are on alert now.'

A resident in southern Mogadishu, where the camp is based, said he had seen one body. The clashes raged from midnight up to dawn.

KHARTOUM, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Darfur rebel group which kidnapped five oil workers in Sudan last month blamed the central government's security services on Saturday for failing to deliver the hostages to their families.

In a notice posted on its website the Justice and Equality Movement said it had handed over the five hostages -- an Egyptian, an Iraqi and three Sudanese -- to tribal leaders.

But the tribal elders refused to relinquish the workers to government security services out of fear for their safety, JEM said.

WEDMADANI, Sudan, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Saturday ordered all training camps to reopen for an auxiliary fighting unit linked to his political party that once battled former rebels in the south.

'We order the legitimate sons of the people to open their camps... not to declare war but to be ready,' said Beshir in Wedmadani, the capital of Al-Jazira state, to mark the 18th anniversary of the popular defence forces.

WINDHOEK, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - A former cabinet minister and senior stalwart of Nambia's ruling party, Hidipo Hamutenya, launched a new movement in Namibia Saturday, promising a different political vision and accelerated economic growth once in power.

Hamutenya resigned from the ruling South West Africa Peoples' Organisation (Swapo) and as a member of parliament last week. He joined the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) which was registered earlier this month by another former Swapo politician, Jesaya Nyamu.

ALGIERS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - A gas explosion in an old house in eastern Algeria killed six people and injured another eight Saturday, emergency services said.

The blast levelled the two-storey building in an old quarter of Annaba, 600 kilometres (375 miles) east of Algiers, killing two women, one of them pregnant, a man and three children.

One of the eight injured was in serious condition, the emergency services added.

NAIROBI, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki called Saturday for a quick end to Sudan's political crisis, following talks with the leader of the semi-autonomous region of South Sudan, Salva Kiir.

Kibaki, whose country was the lead negotiator in ending a two-decade conflict in South Sudan two years ago, also said he had 'contacted (Sudanese) President Omar al-Beshir on the latest crisis,' according to a statement.

WEDMADANI, Sudan, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Saturday denounced as modern-day slavery a French charity's attempt to fly out more than 100 children from war-racked western Sudan.

'This we can call a slave market,' said Beshir in Wedmadani, the capital of Al-Jazira state, at an event marking the 18th anniversary of an armed auxillary that fought against ex-rebels during the war between north and south Sudan.

KINSHASA, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has opened an investigation into allegations of violent sexual abuse implicating one of its soldiers in the country's northeast, it said Saturday.

The incident is alleged to have involved a soldier from the mission's base in Bunia in the Ituri district and occurred on the night between November 13 and 14, the mission said in a statement.

It added that 'all allegations of this nature are taken seriously by the mission'.

MOGADISHU, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Somali rebels launched an overnight attack on a camp of Ugandan troops in Mogadishu, triggering fighting that left at least one insurgent dead, African Union peacekeepers said Saturday.

AU spokesman captain Paddy Ankunda said insurgents had attacked Ugandan troops based in Mogadishu's K-4 neighbourhood, prompting them to return fire.

'They fired rocket-propelled grenades into our base, but we killed one of them. We have a duty to defend ourselves,' Ankunda told AFP.

GOMA, DR Congo, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Seven people were killed and eight injured when a tunnel collapsed on illegal miners digging in workings in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a local official said Saturday.

Dieudonne Tshiku, administrator of the Walikale district, 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of the Nord-Kivu provincial capital of Goma, said local people had pulled the victims out after the collapse happened on Thursday.

He said an investigation had been launched into the accident at the workings operated by the Mining Processing Company.

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The surge in oil to nearly 100 dollars a barrel has raised 'significant' concerns that the high prices will hit demand in the longterm, Nigerian Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia said Saturday.

The minister, speaking on the sidelines of a summit of leaders here, said: 'There must be concern that the high price will eventually surpress demand.'

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The surge in oil to nearly 100 dollars a barrel has raised 'significant' concerns that the high prices will hit demand in the long term, Nigerian Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia said Saturday.

The minister, speaking on the sidelines of a summit of leaders here, said: 'There must be concern that the high price will eventually surpress demand.'

He added: 'We've seen it before when we had a high price that led to recessionary tendencies, which depressed demand and then the price crashed.'

NAIROBI, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The Kenya Wildlife Service chief pilot has gone missing the country's central region with the helicopter he was flying, the agency announced Saturday.

Retired Major Solomon Nyanjui, the head of KWS airwing, left the capital with the helicopter on Thursday for a one-day trip but has not returned, KWS spokesman Paul Udoto said in a statement.

DAKAR, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The speaker of parliament, former prime minister Macky Sall, has been sacked as number two in the ruling party and faces losing his job within a year, a party spokesman said Saturday.

Spokesman Babacar Gaye said the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) leadership, meeting Friday under the chairmanship of President Abdoulaye Wade, had decided to suppress the post of deputy national secretary, held by Sall.

Wade is also the national secretary of the PDS.

LAGOS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Nigerian stock prices rose 3.8 percent this week as the index closed at 53,291.68 points from 51,596.62 the previous week, brokers said Saturday.

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Finance ministers from the world's largest 20 economies began talks Saturday in South Africa focusing on reforming the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The two-day gathering in Kleinmond, near Cape Town, is the first time the G20 group of bank chiefs and finance ministers has met in an African country.

It is also the first time the new head of the World Bank, the American Robert Zoellick, and the new head of the IMF, France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will hold round-table talks with the G20.