JUBA, march 13 Sudan (Reuters) -- Northern nomads attacked a south Sudan army base, killing three people, the southern army said, escalating tensions in the oil-rich border region less than a month before the first multi-party elections in 24 years.

South Sudanese will also vote next January on independence from the north after decades of civil war, and the latest attack highlights an urgent need to demarcate the north-south border and determine the rights of those whose livelihoods traverse the frontier.

"The Misseriya (nomads) have yesterday attacked our forces again," southern army spokesman Kuol Deim Kuol told Reuters on Friday. "They killed two SPLA (southern army) soldiers ... (and) a body from the Misseriya was found."

Four other southern soldiers were also wounded, he said. A similar attack happened in early February on the same army base in oil-producing Unity state close to the north-south border where northern nomads seasonally graze cattle.

In the February gun battle at least 18 people were killed.

East African nations met this week and urged Sudan's north-south former foes to reach agreement on the post-referendum situation within two months as the vote fast approaches.

Citizenship, sharing of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil and a disputed census are some of the post-referendum arrangements yet to be solved.

Southern officials have said that about 70 percent of the border has been agreed upon but that there are still at least four areas of contention including oil-producing areas.

Analysts worry a widely expected vote for independence could cause conflict if the border, which could cut off southern pastures vital to northern pastoralists, is still unclear.

"The south seceding is a threat to their livelihoods and, as the referendum approaches, rising tensions could result in a further loss of life," said Maggie Fick, an analyst from the U.S.-based Enough Project.

The south's semi-autonomous government says the nomads are welcome but must leave weapons in the north, but herders say this leaves them vulnerable to wild animals and cattle raiders.

An agreement signed earlier this month between the herders and southern officials, including from Unity State, says that the nomads may now bring in five small guns to accompany large herds and three guns if they are moving with smaller groups.

"But they (the nomads) are coming with too many guns, they are not implementing this," Kuol said. The agreement also states that the herders are to pay a 5 Sudanese pound levy for each cow grazing in the south, Kuol said.

The attack was probably a result of southern officials trying to stop nomads with large numbers of guns from entering the south and also partly in revenge for those killed in last month's fighting, Kuol said.

Northern nomadic groups were used by Khartoum in the war as proxy fighters against the southern rebels. But in some areas they also formed close trading links with southern communities.

ACCRA, march 13 (Reuters) -- Ghana will set up a commission by the end of the month to begin talks with Ivory Coast over their maritime border, negotiations that could be complicated by Ghana's big offshore oil finds.

"I expect the 13-member commission to be inaugurated by early next week and for preparatory work to begin in April," a Ghanaian source close to the issue said on Friday on condition of anonymity.

Ivory Coast has for years sought to clarify its offshore border with Ghana, but recently renewed its efforts by petitioning the United Nations after Ghana discovered additional oil reserves off its coast.

Ivory Coast's energy minister, Augustin Komoe Kouadio, told Reuters earlier this week he did not expect the negotiations to become a dispute over oil rights.

"I affirm there will not be a fight over oil between Ivory Coast and Ghana," he said.

Ghana, the world's second-biggest producer of cocoa behind Ivory Coast, is set to become a commercial oil producer by the end of this year as production from the giant offshore Jubilee oilfield comes on line.

Late in February, Russian oil firm LukOil announced a significant oil find offshore Ghana in a discovery that will add to the West African country's already sizeable reserves.

LOME, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore reshuffled his government on Friday, replacing three ministers, said news reports from Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.

The three new government members are Minister of Labor and Social Security Amadou Adrien Kone, Minister of Trade, Promotion of Enterprise and Handicraft Leonce Kone and minister in charge of budget planning Francois Marie Didier Zoundi.

Jerome Bougouma, the former labor and social security minister, resigned over love affair scandals several weeks ago.

Local analysts say the reshuffle was a prelude to the presidential election slated for November.

ANTANANARIVO, march 13 (Reuters) -- A violent tropical storm battered Madagascar's eastern coastline killing at least 14 people and leaving thousands more homeless, the government said on Friday.

The National Office for Risk and Catastrophe Management (BNGRC) said in a statement that tropical storm Hubert destroyed more than 500 homes and left people salvaging what they could from thousands of other flooded properties.

Louis de Gonzague Rakotonirainy, secretary general of the BNGRC, said it was sending 50 tonnes of rice to affected regions.

The world's fourth largest island, where major multinational companies are exploiting oil, cobalt, nickel and uranium deposits, lies in a cyclone belt in the southwestern Indian Ocean and is hit most years.

Madagascar is reeling from the effects of a year-long political crisis which has sharply slowed foreign direct investment and curbed economic growth.

Kano, march 13 (pressTV) -- Three people have been killed and hundreds injured in a fire that destroyed Nigeria's largest textile market, incurring a loss valued at billions of naira, traders said on Friday.

The blaze engulfed 500 shops and hundreds of stalls owned by Nigerian, Indian, Chinese and Lebanese traders while textile goods and materials valued at billions of naira — thousands of dollars — were destroyed.

Firefighters were struggling to extinguish the fire that began shortly after midnight on Thursday at Kantin Kwari textile market in Kano.

Eye witnesses said that those killed were in the process of saving their goods and money from being consumed in the wild fire.

"The fire was caused by a spark from a nearby transformer when power was restored after a blackout," Liti Kulkul, a spokesman for the traders told AFP.

"Fire is still raging but firefighters are battling to contain it," he said, adding that the state-run National Emergency Management Agency was working to dispatch a helicopter to put out the blaze.

HARARE, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai appear to have found common ground with regards to the issue of black empowerment, with both agreeing that the policy should enhance indigenous participation in the economy.

However, they still have to agree on how best to implement the policy as they try to strike a balance between black participation in the economy and the need to attract foreign investors.

Mugabe remains vociferous, to the extent that he has become anti-white, in his bid to implement the policy, while Tsvangirai is taking a cautious approach, lest the policy scares away foreign investment much needed to help turn around the country's economy.

Since the then entirely Zanu-PF government led by Mugabe moved to promulgate an indigenization law in 2007, Tsvangirai's MDC party, then in opposition, and the investor community had opposed it because of lack of clarity on how it would be implemented.

The law requires companies to submit forms declaring their shareholding structures within 45 days from March 1, 2010.

The intention is that indigenous people should hold 51 percent shareholding in all existing and new multinational businesses.

Businesses that do not meet the 51 percent indigenisation requirement will be expected to submit a plan on how they intend to meet the requirements within 45 days from March 1, and those with acceptable reasons will be afforded an extension not exceeding 30 days.

Also, all existing businesses with a threshold of 500,000 U.S. dollars should, within 45 days from March 1, 2010, declare their shareholding status to the indigenisation minister through a prescribed form.

Current entities will be given a five-year period from March 1, 2010 to comply, while new businesses will also be given five years from date of commencement of business.

Both existing and potential investors have expressed concern over the new regulations. Mugabe has said indigenization laws should not be viewed as obstacles to investment promotion but as promoting the greater participation by Zimbabweans in the economy and as a democratization of economic activities.

When indigenization and economic empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere gazetted the indigenization regulations in January, a war of words erupted between him and investment promotion minister Elton Mangoma, with the latter arguing that they would push away investors. Mangoma is a member of Tsvangirai's party, which also criticized the regulations.

"The MDC views these provocative and anti-investment regulations as a deliberate attempt to undermine the country and its people. At a time when Zimbabwe desperately needs foreign direct investment, it is an affront to recovery efforts for the Ministry of Youth and Indigenisation to nocturnally and unilaterally gazette these anti-people and anti-Zimbabwe regulations," the party said.

It alleged that the people who were intended to benefit from the new regulations were not ordinary people, but those in Mugabe' s inner circle. However, party leader Tsvangirai was this week singing a different tune as he sought to assure investors that there was nothing sinister about the new regulations.

"I want to assure you that there is no intention on the part of the government to undermine investment, but to promote broad based indigenization and empowerment.

"Sometimes investors get alarmed when a policy is announced without clarification, but I want to assure you that the policy is in the best interests of the people of Zimbabwe. The policy intends to enhance local participation and, of course, not the enrichment of a few people," he told a symposium on public-private partnerships in Harare on Thursday.

Even as early as last year, Tsvangirai had expressed support for the regulations, provided they were implemented in a transparent manner.

He told a mining conference in September that he supported the policy, but wanted its implementation to be fair, transparent and in line with international norms.

"To remove the uncertainty around the policy of indigenization, it will be based on ensuring that ordinary Zimbabweans benefit from the country's mineral endowment and participate at all levels in the business of mining and mineral exploitation."

He argued that no right-thinking Zimbabwean, or any person from anywhere in the world, could see fault in such an approach if it was implemented fairly, transparently and in line with accepted international norms.

Now that the policy is being explained, there is a bit of thawing by skeptics who had seen it merely as a way to expropriate wealth from foreign companies. It is now clear that investors will get a fair return on their investments following a valuation of their worth.

However, while the government is still to agree on how the new law should be implemented, Kasukuwere has not indicated that the process has been suspended.

He has emphasized though that no shareholding will be taken for free and all transactions will be on a commercial basis. If there are valuation disputes, the Administrative Court will decide.

KINSHASA, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) hopes to see the UN peacekeeping mission pull out in 2011 and shift the duty to its own armed forces, a senior official has said.

Communication Minister and government spokesman Lambert Mende told a press conference here on Thursday that Kinshasa hopes to see the UN mission MONUC out in 2011 to allow the army (FARDC), police and security forces to strengthen themselves and the country to conduct judicial reforms.

Mende said the position had already been communicated to UN officials and that the proposal was being discussed by both sides.

The disengagement of MONUC is supposed to begin with those deployed in the zones no longer threatened by any conflict within the central African county. They need to be transferred by now until the end of 2010 to the two provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, which are still facing attacks from armed groups.

On the issue of reconfiguring the mandate of MONUC, the Congolese government stated that this is line with the essential principles of respecting the independence and sovereignty of DR Congo and setting up a national plan by the government to reform the security system.

MOGADISHU, march 13 (pressTV) -- Death toll from the latest clashes between government forces and Somali fighters has climbed to around 80 as the bloodshed continues in the violence-blighted nation.

Three days of clashes in the capital Mogadishu has also left an estimated 200 people, A Press TV correspondent reported.

Many of the victims are said to be civilians caught in the fighting over the control of the capital.

The exact total number of fatalities on either side remains unknown as both claim success in the deadly conflict.

The latest round of fighting began after Somali government forces backed by the African Union peacekeepers engaged al-Shabab fighters on Wednesday.

The government has urged Mogadishu residents to leave the hotspots as it plans to reclaim al-Shabab-controlled areas 'once and for all.'

The violence has forced many residents to flee the capital as government forces claim to have recaptured three capital districts overnight.

An estimated 19 government troops and 30 al-Shabab fighters are said to have died in Thursday clashes as heavy fighting continues in the capital.

nairobi, march 13 (pressTV) -- Enraged crowd engaged police in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi after law enforcement agents allegedly shot dead seven taxi drivers in a Nairobi suburb.

"This is extra judicial killing that our police are engaging in. You can't shoot innocent people like that and say it was a mistake," A Press TV correspondent quoted a local resident Jason Onduso as saying on Thursday.

The seven taxi drivers were allegedly killed by police Wednesday night after they received an apparent false alarm identifying the drivers as part of a criminal gang that harassed motorcycle-taxi operators in the same suburb.

"It is a mistake and we are investigating because the death of seven people in such circumstances is a serious matter that can not be left to pass. But somebody gave a false alarm to the police that these were members of a terror gang operating in the area," said police Spokesperson Erick Kiraithe.

A taxi operator in the area has also pointed to the recent angry squabbles between motorcycle and automobile taxi operators over customers.

"We have had issues here over pricing and control of the area and on the night of Wednesday, we engaged in a scuffle and somebody told the police we were thugs and now they have shot seven people who are very innocent," said James Kamau, a local taxi operator.

Meanwhile, another Police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has insisted that the security forces responded to gunfire by 'thugs.'

"These were thugs and they had guns and engaged our officers in a shoot out before they were gunned down. They were not innocent as people want to claim," the police source claimed Thursday.

TUNISIA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accepted an apology from the U.S. State Department over its spokesman's comments on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The ministry said in a statement carried by the Libyan News Agency that it "accepts the apology and regret shown by the U.S. State Department as well as the explanation given by its spokesman Philip Crowley. "

The statement said that it "welcomes resuming the exchange of visits between officials of the two countries and insists on its willingness to develop bilateral relations in all fields and within a framework of mutual respect."

Libya officially protested last week about statements made by Crowley over Gaddafi's speech calling for a "jihad" against Switzerland last month.

Crowley apologized on Tuesday, saying that his comments "were not intended to offend" and "do not reflect U.S. policy."

Nairobi, march 11 (Alshahid) -– Leaders from Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states on Tuesday urged parties to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement to remain committed to the implementation of outstanding issues in the agreement.

The IGAD leaders asked the parties to the CPA to particularly move towards completing the North-South Abyei border demarcation, redeployment of forces, integration of the joint Units, establishment of South Sudan and Abyei Referendum Commissions of popular consultations in South Kordofon and blue Nile States .

They also want the long-running boundary dispute in the oil-producing Abyei region resolved fast owing to the building tension ahead of the country’s elections next month and an upcoming referendum in 2011 to decide whether South Sudan would formally break away from the North.

Both north and south Sudan have claimed Abyei, a central area straddling the country’s north-south border, for decades.

The leaders, who included President Mwai Kibaki, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Ismael Omar Guelleh of Djibouti and Transitional Federal Government of Somalia Premier Omar Ali Sharmark among others, made the recommendations in a communiqué issued at the end of the 14th Extra-Ordinary Summit of IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the Sudan peace process at Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

“The implementation of the CPA is at a critical stage because of the coming elections and the referendum and how they are tackled will shape the future of Sudan,” President Mwai Kibaki said.

In his closing remarks, Ethiopian Prime Minister Zenawi reaffirmed IGAD’s total commitment to support both SPLM and NCP in the Sudan peace process towards the realization of the agreed objectives and goals of the C.P.A. implementation process.

CAPE TOWN, march 11 (Reuters) -- South Africa and the UK have agreed to double trade between their countries, which fell to around 40 billion rand last year due to the global recession, a South African minister said on Thursday.

"In 2009, trade fell back to around 40 billion rand, so doubling our trade is definitely a very attainable target and both sides agreed on that," Rob Davies, South Africa's trade minister told journalists.

MOGADISHU, march 11 (Reuters) -- Fighting between Somali government forces and al Shabaab rebels in the north of Mogadishu on Wednesday killed 17 people and wounded 65, a Somali human rights group and rescue services said.

Residents said al Shabaab also beheaded two employees of a telecommunications company in the capital who had been accused by the al Qaeda-linked insurgents of spying for the government.

Somali insurgents have fought the government since the start of 2007 and the Western-backed administration has been hemmed into a few blocks of the capital since a rebel offensive last May.

The government has said for several months it will launch a major offensive but has yet to carry out the plan. Rebels have stepped up attacks in various parts of the city in recent weeks and government forces have responded with shelling.

"We have collected 17 dead civilians and 65 others wounded- we took them to various hospitals," Ali Muse, the coordinator of ambulance services, told Reuters.

"Most of the casualties took place this afternoon when fighting became more fierce. The death toll may rise for most people were seriously wounded by shells. Some are likely to die in hospitals."

Somalia's state minister for defence said it was a victory to overpower al Shabaab fighters.

"We have surrounded al Shabaab and driven them away. It was a victory for us and we shall disclose the details tomorrow," Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad 'Indha Ade', told reporters.

Siyad said some al Shabaab fighters had surrendered while they had captured others.

The beheaded telecoms company staff had been accused by al Shabaab of helping to direct government shells towards rebel positions in Mogadishu, residents said.

"We could see the two beheaded bodies lying on the street but we were afraid to carry them away," said resident Abdullahi Karshe.

Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbours say the anarchic country is used as a shelter by militants intent on launching attacks in east Africa and further afield.

The chaos onshore has allowed pirate gangs to flourish and make millions of dollars from hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Residents said the fighting escalated in the afternoon after African Union tanks joined in. Government officials would not comment that AU forces were fighting alongside them.

"AU tanks joined later, forcing al Shabaab to pull back carrying dead bodies and injured ones in their cars," resident Ali Samatar told Reuters.

Residents said government troops dragged away the corpse of an al Shabaab fighter believed to be that of a foreigner.

"I could see a government's battle wagon pulling a dead body. I cannot exactly say the nationality of the dead al Shabaab, but he looked like an Arab - the body was white," resident Bare Farah told Reuters.

MOGADISHU, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Somali government will begin within weeks the much anticipated major onslaught to retake the Somali capital Mogadishu from Islamist groups with help from the U. S. military, a Somali military officer said Wednesday.

Although Somali government officials have either been evading the whole question of whether the United States will get involved in the much speculated offensive or been noncommittal in their answers, some within the government military seeking anonymity, said the plan is in the final stages.

"It could be in weeks because we have been planning for this (offensive) for sometime and we have been coordinating with the United States because without their help this may not be a success, " a senior Somali military commander told Xinhua in Mogadishu,

The commander in the Somali capital Mogadishu added that Somali government forces would, as he put it, take the lion's share in its drive to reclaim the restive capital once the offensive gets underway.

The U.S. military and the 5,000 African Union peacekeepers will back the thousands of newly trained soldiers of the Somali government to wrestle the important and largest city which has remained the seat of government for the Somali State for 50 years.

Many analysts here believed that any side which manages to control the whole of Mogadishu is in essence in control of the whole country as the city has been and still is the area which generates most of the political and economic activities in the whole of war-ravaged country.

"It is make or break for both the Somali government which controls only part of this important city and for rebels who claim to control most of the south and centre of Somalia for control of Mogadishu ," said Ali Mohamed, an analyst in Mogadishu .

A senior U.S. military commander said on Tuesday the United States would support the Somali transitional government to retake the national capital Mogadishu .

Speaking to a Senate hearing on Somalia , William Ward, who runs the U.S. Africa Command, said the Somali government's efforts in retaking Mogadishu is "something that we would look to do in support."

Both the Somali government and Islamist insurgent fighters have been engaged in war of words and display of force since the talk of the offensive began several weeks ago.

The radical Islamist group of Al Shabaab which has, for the past two years, been waging deadly insurgence against Somali government and African Union peacekeeping forces expressed defiance in reacting to the U.S. support of Somali government offensive.

"It is just the usual American bluff and intimidation which will never frighten us. Even if they truly come and back the apostate government we will defeat them," Ali Mohamoud Rage, spokesman for the group told reporters in Mogadishu this week.

The New York Times reported on Friday the United States is helping the Horn of Africa nation's government put together a major offensive to take back the capital, providing training and support. The broadsheet also cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Pentagon may send Special Forces to help, as well as striking militants from the sky.

The U.S. military has recently been carrying out surveillance and air strikes on Islamist targets in Somalia where two senior Al Shabaab leaders were killed while in the meantime it provided some military support for the Somali government in their fight with radical groups.

Washington, as well as other capitals, considers the group which recently pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, as a terrorist entity and banned it from operating in their respective countries. Britain is considering following suit.

LAGOS, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian Police in northern Plateau State has said 109 people were killed in the Sunday violence.

Local officials and residents had previously said that over 500 people, mostly women and children were killed during the violence on Sunday.

Ikechukwu Aduba, state commissioner of police spokesman, disclosed this at a news conference in Jos on Wednesday.

The clash followed the crisis on Jan. 17 in Jos in Plateau State, when some youths attacked worshippers at St. Michael's Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom.

NEW YORK, march 11 (Reuters) - The Libyan president of the U.N. General Assembly is among more than 180 people banned from traveling to much of Europe due to a diplomatic row between Libya and Switzerland, Libya's U.N. mission said on Wednesday.

Ali Abdussalam Treki, former Libyan foreign minister and president of the General Assembly since last September, is on a list of Libyans whom Tripoli says are barred from obtaining visas in the so-called Schengen area.

The borderless travel zone incorporates 25 European countries -- 22 European Union members plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway -- where free movement of persons is guaranteed.

Libya is calling for an end to the visa ban for the people on the list, which was provided to reporters by its U.N. mission, and for both sides to resolve the dispute in arbitration mediated by a neutral country.

"We could have a solution, not to escalate everything," Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham told reporters at the country's mission. "We want a solution."

Shalgam himself, as well as Libya's OPEC Secretary Abdullah Albadri, are on the list. A spokesman for the Swiss mission declined comment.

Libya said Switzerland started imposing restrictions on granting Schengen visas to Libyan citizens in August 2009, and later issued a list of people prohibited from obtaining visas.

A Libyan newspaper wrote about the list in February, but the full list of names was only now made available.

Treki's spokesman said the assembly president "stresses the need to resolve this dispute in a manner that upholds the principles of international law."

Libyan relations with Switzerland broke down in mid-2008 with the arrest of a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a Geneva hotel on charges of mistreating two domestic servants.

The charges were dropped but Tripoli cut oil supplies to Switzerland, withdrew more than $5 billion from Swiss bank accounts and imposed a trade embargo on the neutral alpine country.

More European countries were pulled into the dispute when Libya blocked visas for citizens of the Schengen passport-free zone, including most of the European Union, after the Swiss barred entry to some Libyans including Gaddafi and his family.

Switzerland's decision to impose a travel ban on Libyan officials prompted retaliation by Tripoli, which imposed visa restrictions on all visitors from the Schengen area.

The dispute is uncomfortable for European governments that struck up friendly ties with Gaddafi after Libya emerged from sanctions and began cooperating on security and migration.

LONDON, march 11 (Reuters) -- Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Wednesday the thawing of her country's relations with France may have paved the way for last week's arrest of a leading Rwandan genocide suspect in Paris.

French judges had sped up their investigation into Agathe Habyarimana since the diplomatic rapprochement in November, Mushikiwabo said on a visit to celebrate Rwanda joining the Commonwealth.

The widow of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who died in a plane crash in 1994, is suspected of having instigated the genocide in Rwanda in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in less than 100 days.

"I don't know if it's a coincidence that she's been apprehended but we've had four French judges come to Rwanda to look for evidence since November after years of delay," she told a news conference at the Rwandan High Commission in London.

Habyarimana was briefly arrested on an international warrant issued late last year by Rwandan authorities, who have called on Paris to pursue genocide suspects living in France. She has been forbidden from leaving French territory.

Rwanda has made no official extradition request for the 68-year-old who fled to France in 1994. A French judicial source said it was unlikely she would be returned to Rwanda for trial.

Her lawyer, Philippe Meilhac, rejected the accusations against his client as baseless. But Mushikiwabo said the Rwandan people were convinced of Habyarimana's guilt.

"From the mid 1980s she was a woman who was central in the genocide enterprise. Every single Rwandan in the country at the time will tell you stories about her," she said.

Mushikiwabo praised French President Nicolas Sarkozy for helping restore diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"When he came to power President Sarkozy reached out and said 'I want to have direct dialogue with Rwanda', and he showed a lot of good will. We responded to his personal involvement and request for trust," she said.

Mushikiwabo said she was hopeful Rwanda's high commissioner to India would be extradited by South Africa to face questioning on his alleged links to recent grenade attacks in Kigali.

Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former army chief of staff, fled to South Africa last month after being questioned by police about the attack, which killed two people and injured 30.

"We are hopeful we will get good help from South Africa. We know for a fact that Mr Nyamwasa has links with another defector and he's part of a network trying to spark instability," she said.

Mushikiwabo told reporters Rwanda was no nearer to returning captured rebel general Laurent Nkunda to authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, citing concerns over the possibility of his being sentenced to death.

Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda in January 2009 and DRC officials want him returned to face war crimes charges.

Bamako, march 11 (AFP) -- Islamist militants freed a Spanish aid worker and an Italian woman Wednesday who were being taken to Burkina Faso from Mali where kidnappers held them since November, a Malian negotiator said.

"The news is good. As we speak the two women are on their way to Burkina," the negotiator said.

Spanish hostage held in Mali freed

By Tidiane SY

An anti-terrorist source in Madrid said earlier Wednesday that Alicia Gamez, 39, one of three Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in November, was "being freed".

"She is being taken to a safe place," the source said.

Italian national Philomene Kaboure, 39, of Burkina Faso descent, initially refused to to be freed, preferring to remain behind with her Italian husband Sergio Cicala, 65, sources close to the negotiation process said.

Though, the government was unable to confirm a report by Italy's Ansa news agency that an Italian woman was freed at the same time as Spaniard Alicia Gamez.

The couple was kidnapped on December 18, also in Mauritania.

Spanish vice-president Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega confirmed she had gone to Barcelona Tuesday to speak with the families of the three aid workers about possible developments to come in the hostage situation.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called early Wednesday for prudence but said that "things are going in the right direction."

The Spanish press reported several weeks ago that AQIM had demanded a ransom for the release of the three aid workers for a Barcelona aid group, who were kidnapped in Mauritania on November 29.

Spanish daily El Mundo said Madrid was in the process of paying a five million dollar (3.7 million euro) ransom in exchange for the hostages.

However on March 1 a Malian negotiator said the case "had reached a standstill".

AQIM had previously demanded the release of Mauritanian prisoners for the safety and freedom of the Italian couple, giving a deadline of March 1, which has passed with no news.

The threat posed by terrorist groups in the Sahel is being taken very seriously after the death of British tourist Edwin Dyer in June 2009, killed by AQIM after six months in captivity when London refused to yield to blackmail by the Islamist combatants.

CAIRO, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Foreign Ministry condemned Wednesday Israel's decision to build 1,600 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, saying it is "a real peril to peace efforts," the official MENA news agency reported.

"Israel's decision to build 1,600 settlement units in the holy city of East Jerusalem is a real peril to peace efforts which have not started seriously yet," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit has ordered making contacts with U.S. officials to brief them on Egypt's rejection of such Israeli moves and calls for freezing them indefinitely if the Israeli government is serious in realizing peace, the spokesman added.

The Israeli Interior Ministry approved on Tuesday building 1, 600 new settler homes in East Jerusalem, just one day after U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell announced that the Israeli and Palestinian sides had agreed to hold indirect talks.

The Israel's decision was also condemned by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is on a high-profile visit to the region to boost renewed peace efforts.

MOMBASA, march 11 (Reuters) -- A Kenyan court sentenced seven Somalis to 20 years in prison for piracy on Wednesday after they tried to attack a Danish cargo vessel.

British Royal Navy forces arrested the men in 2008 after they attempted to seize MV Powerful off the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping routes. Two pirates died in an ensuing fight.

They were then handed over to Kenyan authorities and charged with piracy.

"Having considered the seriousness ... of the offence, and circumstances under which the suspects were arrested, only stiff penalties can deter such activities," Senior Principal Magistrate Lilian Mutende said, delivering her judgment.

Pirates have caused havoc in the Gulf of Aden, raking in millions of dollars in ransoms, hiking insurance premiums on shipping and threatening humanitarian supplies.

Kenya is holding over 100 suspected pirates, and police say this is clogging jails and courts. Local Muslim leaders say Kenya should not be used as a dumping ground and foreign navies should take charge of the people they arrest.

International navies trying to counter piracy off Somalia are often reluctant to take suspects to their own countries because they either lack the jurisdiction to put them on trial there, or they fear the pirates may seek asylum.

The European Union, United States and some other countries have instead struck agreements with Kenya to hand over suspects to face trial there. Some pirates are being prosecuted in France and the Netherlands.

In Kenya, 10 other pirates are serving a seven-year jail term at a prison in Voi, near Mombasa.

A lawyer representing the seven, in their 20s and 30s, said he planned to appeal against the sentences.

"It is clearly stated in law that the court in Kenya ... has no jurisdiction beyond the Kenyan waters. Why should Kenya be the one to feed Somali aliens for 20 years?" Jared Magolo said.