MORONI (Reuters) - Students in Comoros protested on Monday against school closures and teachers demanded their salaries, increasing pressure on the Indian Ocean archipelago's leader as he seeks to extend his mandate.

Hundreds of primary school students and university undergraduates marched with their teachers through the dusty streets of the capital, Moroni. They waved banners reading "the state is neglecting education".

Public sector teachers have been on strike for almost a month over payment arrears of up to six months, leaving classrooms empty since the New Year.

"It's now a month that we haven't been to school. The government is incapable of meeting the simple demand of paying salaries," student Halima Mohamed told Reuters.

Security forces blocked access to an avenue leading to President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi's palace.

Sambi's ruling coalition won a parliamentary election in December.

Teachers at the rally said the leader, seen by many as an Islamic reformer, is more intent on keeping his grip on power than addressing social needs.

Students said they feared the academic year would be wasted and exams cancelled if schools failed to reopen soon.

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's President John Atta Mills announced his first cabinet reshuffle on Monday, making minor changes but leaving the key portfolios of defence, energy, finance and foreign affairs unchanged.

The most significant change in the reshuffle, the first since Mills took power in January last year, was the replacement of Interior Minister Cletus Avoka with Martin Amidu, a deputy justice minister under longtime ruler Jerry Rawlings.

Mills's team came to power with the prospect of Ghana soon joining Africa's oil-producing club but also facing a vast public deficit and rampant inflation at a time when the global economy was in turmoil.

The government of the cocoa- and gold-producer has brought inflation nearly down to a target of 15 percent but Mills says the economic recovery remains his priority.

Amidu, regarded as a distinguished lawyer, was the vice presidential candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress in 2000 when Mills lost to former President John Kufuor.

Mills also moved Information Minister Zita Okaikoi to the Tourism Ministry. She was replaced with John Tiah, a journalist and a leading Member of Parliament.

Enoch Teye Mensah, an influential minister under Rawlings and currently a leading Member of Parliament, has been appointed to the portfolio of employment and social welfare.

Other portfolios affected by Monday's reshuffle were Water Resources, Works and Housing; Women and Children's Affairs and Youth and Sports.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - A coalition of former Nigerian militants and Niger Delta community leaders rejected on Monday government efforts to reintegrate thousands of ex-rebels, saying training centres and funding were inadequate.

The dispute, if not resolved soon, could threaten President Umaru Yar'Adua's popular amnesty programme which has brought months of relative peace to the Niger Delta, oil major Nigeria's main oil-producing region.

The Joint Revolutionary Council, representing several former militant commanders, demanded the government significantly improve education facilities and include oil and gas training programmes.

"More than 98 percent of the suggested training centres were non-existent, ill-equipped, non-accredited and non-recognised," Cynthia Whyte, the group's spokeswoman, said.

Community groups also asked for financial assistance for families of former militants.

"I think the package should include provisions for wives, children and dependents of ex-militants who died in the course of the struggle," said Udengs Eradiri, spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council.

The coalition said it would continue talks with the government in hopes the demands would be met.

Thousands of militants last year handed over their weapons in return for Yar'Adua's promise for clemency, monthly stipends, education, job opportunities and investment in the impoverished Niger Delta.

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said on Monday she will stand for re-election in 2011, ending speculation over her future despite a proposed ban on her taking part in politics by the nation's truth commission.

Johnson-Sirleaf, who came to power as Africa's first female president after 2005 elections, has won much international praise for her role in rebuilding Liberia after the country's 1989-2003 war left the West African nation in tatters.

"I have spent the past four years, sometimes to the neglect of family and friends, building the foundations upon which our economic recovery and our future prosperity will be based," she told parliament on Monday.

"Whatever I do, it will be for you. And so it is for these reasons and to bring to an end all speculation, that I now announce to you ... that I will be a candidate, a formidable candidate, in the 2011 elections," she said.

Last year, Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission said Johnson-Sirleaf should be banned from public office for 30 years for backing a rebellion led by former President Charles Taylor. The incumbent said she had provided Taylor with money but said she had been misled into supporting him.

Taylor is on trial in The Hague for war crimes including murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery during the interlinked wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in which more than 250,000 people were killed.

Johnson-Sirleaf did not directly comment on Monday on the commission's proposed ban, saying instead that while not everyone agreed with the commission's findings, the body made important recommendations for progress in the country.

"It is therefore important that we carefully digest the report and make a conscious national determination to move ahead cautiously and strategically in the implementation of the recommendations," she said.

The Commission was established in 2005 to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity. As well as Johnson-Sirleaf, its report names another 49 people it says either participated in or financed the rebellion and should be banned from office for 30 years.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese and international search teams scoured the Mediterranean coast on Tuesday for the victims and missing flight recorders of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed into the sea soon after takeoff from Beirut.

Ships including a U.S. naval vessel as well as European and U.N. peacekeeping helicopters and planes searched through the night for wreckage of the Boeing 737-800 that plunged into the rough sea in a ball of fire before dawn on Monday.

Ninety people, mostly Lebanese and Ethiopians, were on board Flight ET409 heading to Addis Ababa before it disappeared off the radar five minutes after takeoff.

Lebanese officials said 14 bodies, including those of two toddlers, had been recovered so far. They said an earlier total they gave of 24 had been incorrect. The body parts of another victim were also retrieved.

The plane apparently broke up in the air before crashing into the sea during a thunderstorm and Lebanon has ruled out terrorism as the cause. Recovery teams pulled out a segment of the plane's wing that had Ethiopian Airlines' red, yellow and green colours emblazoned on it.

A Lebanese security official said recovery teams would widen their search perimeter off the Na'ameh coast, 10 km (six miles) south of the capital, after rough seas and high waves hampered them during the night. Sonar equipment on navy vessels was being used to detect the wreckage.

"They need to pinpoint the location of the wreckage and then launch a dive there," the official said, to find data recorders that would give a clearer picture of what went wrong.

A baby's sandal, dolls, cigarette packs and candy were among the few items that washed up on Beirut's shore but the main wreckage of the plane remained elusive.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's central bank has reiterated its mandate of protecting the value of the local currency for sustainable economic growth and warned shareholders against abusing their power for personal interests.

In what it said was a response to the media interest generated by reports that the ruling ANC has called for the nationalisation of the institution, the bank also reaffirmed its independence as entrenched in the constitution.

Local newspapers reported on Sunday that top officials in the ANC are pushing for the state to take over ownership of the bank, one of the few central banks in the world to still owned by private shareholders.

The papers said ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe had presented a document to the party's top decision-making committee questioning why the private sector still had ownership.

"The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has noted the media interest evidently generated by comments of ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe," the bank said in a statement clarifying the parameters within which it operates.

"The SARB is required to conduct its activities in the public interest only, without regard to profit maximisation," it said, adding control was exercised between shareholders and government "in a manner whereby the latter, in normal circumstances, may exercise ultimate control over the Bank".

"Shareholders should ... at all times exercise their powers in accordance with these principles and avoid any actions which could be construed as an attempt by them to abuse their powers for purposes of self-interest and own enrichment," the statement added.

Shareholders in the Reserve Bank are entitled to appoint half of the board of directors but have no say in the day-to-day operations, or policies, of the bank. The governor and deputies are appointed by the president and are responsible for running the bank.

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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African vaccine maker Biovac Institute, in partnership with major pharmaceutical firms, is on track to boost annual capacity sevenfold to 35 million doses by 2013, its deputy chief executive said.

Morena Makhoana said on Monday the bulk of the doses, 25 million, will be destined for Africa, where a lack of manufacturing capacity meant the world's poorest continent was dependant on imported vaccines to fight "neglected" killer diseases such as TB and cholera.

"We are in discussions with Sanofi-Pasteur, a unit of Sanofi-Aventis, with GlaxoSmithKline and with Wyeth, who are now called Pfizer, and all three of them have shown a willingness to enter into a technology transfer with one, or a few, of their vaccines already in the South African market," Makhoana told Reuters in an interview.

GlaxoSmithKline indicated earlier this month it would give away access to a stock of 13,500 potential malaria treatments for others to test and develop further.

Makhoana said the proposed technology transfers would enable Biovac, a public-private partnership established between the South African government and the Biovac Consortium in 2003, to reposition itself from a company involved in the late stages of production to one that is involved in the whole vaccine development cycle.

The company estimates it would cost some 130 million rand to fund its expansion programme over the next three years, with government taking up a 12.5 equity stake in two months time. It is also looking at loans from South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation and international partners.

Makhoana said the increased capacity would mean Biovac could respond to pandemics, such as the H1N1 flu virus which has killed nearly 14,000 worldwide, in the future.

Biovac is the only human vaccine manufacturer in sub-Saharan Africa, with one smaller plant found in Senegal and another facility in Egypt which caters solely for that domestic market, said Makhoana.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - An explosion at the African Union (AU) outpatients' clinic near Mogadishu's airport on Monday killed at least one person, the spokesman for African Union peacekeepers in Somalia said.

"I have confirmed one dead. I do not know whether it is one of our soldiers or a Somali. The explosion took place when the OPD clinic was being closed," said spokesman Barigye Ba-hoku.

"I am now heading to the hospital where other casualties were taken," he said.

The hospital run by the AU mission AMISOM, made up of troops from Uganda and Burundi, is within its main Halane base behind Mogadishu's airport.

The hospital also treats Somalis wounded in the almost daily violence in the Horn of Africa nation's capital.

Insurgents often fire mortar rounds at AMISOM's airport base but many land without causing casualties.

Twin suicide car bombs struck the AU headquarters in September killing 17 peacekeepers, including the Burundian deputy commander of the force.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Monday to set up a military mission in Uganda to train Somali government forces who are fighting an Islamist insurgency.

The mission, expected to be led by Spain and involving around 100 troops, should begin in the second quarter of this year, EU foreign ministers decided at a meeting in Brussels.

"The EU should ... continue to help stabilise Somalia by providing support to vital and priority areas such as the security sector, development, assistance to the population and capacity-building support," they said in a statement.

"In this context, the Council agreed to set up a military mission to contribute to training of Somali security forces."

Some EU member states expressed concern that training Somali troops and providing them with guns could cause more problems than it solves if there were not long-term commitments in place to pay them and give them institutional support.

Those issues, including the vetting of trainees and the monitoring of the force once it is back in Mogadishu, must be addressed before the mission gets under way, the ministers said.

Spain and France have already committed troops to the training team and other countries are expected to follow, including Britain, Slovenia, Greece and Hungary.

Somalia has had no central government since 1991. Foreign governments have stepped up efforts to stabilise the country in the past three or four years, since it became a major source of piracy, with dozens of ships and crew taken hostage for ransom.

Since the start of 2007, conflict in Somalia has killed 20,000 civilians and uprooted more than 1.5 million from their homes. The government is confined to a few small blocks of the capital and exerts little influence over the state.

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KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A man threw his shoe at Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in a public conference in the capital on Monday, a particularly insulting action in Arab culture, eye witnesses said.

They said the unidentified man was swiftly detained by about 10 presidential guards although the projectile missed Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in the western Darfur region.

It was not immediately clear why the man hurled his shoe.

The presidency denied any shoe was thrown and said the man was stopped by security while carrying an envelope he wanted to deliver to Bashir.

In Arab culture, it is rude even to show the sole of your shoe to a colleague and shoes are left at the door of mosques.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush was subjected to the same insult in Iraq in 2008 when an Iraqi journalist threw both his shoes at him.

"The man was close to the podium and threw the shoe but it didn't reach him," said one eye witness, saying the incident appeared to shock the dozens of officials gathered for the conference on strategic planning for governing Sudan.

Three eye witnesses who had been inside the Friendship Hall in Khartoum, all of whom asked not to be named, confirmed the incident to Reuters. They said the man was in his late 40s or early 50s, was dressed smartly and said nothing.

"He seemed calm, even after he was arrested," said another of the witnesses.

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The UN Special Rapporteur on health, Anand Grover, warned that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill being considered by the Ugandan Parliament is "not only a violation of the fundamental human rights of Ugandans, but will also undermine efforts to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support."
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“Lessons from the last 30 years of the HIV epidemic have shown us that recognition of the rights of people with different sexual identities is a necessary component for a successful HIV and health response,” stressed the UN expert.

“In many countries where sex between men is not criminalized and where stigma and discrimination have been reduced, men who have sex with men are more likely to take up HIV prevention, care and support and treatment services,” he added.

“I urge the Ugandan Parliament to build on its past successes in responding to HIV and to refrain from passing this Bill,” said Grover, while strongly supporting the President and other members of the Government in their attempts to prevent the initiative of some members of the Parliament that the bill becoming law.

He said: “Uganda is in the great danger of taking a step backwards – away from realizing human rights for its people and away from an effective, evidence and rights-based HIV response.”

The Special Rapporteur on health stressed that a number of UN human rights conventions ban discrimination on grounds of sexual identity or orientation, and laws that criminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults violate the right to privacy.

Homosexuality is already criminalized through Uganda’s existing penal code, but the proposed Bill will increase penalties for homosexual conduct and will criminalize many related activities, such as the ‘promotion of homosexuality.’

By including the publication and dissemination of materials, funding and sponsoring related activities, and any attempts to ‘promote or abet homosexuality,’ these provisions could affect the work of civil society actors and human rights defenders addressing issues of sexual orientation or gender identity, which are crucial to addressing vulnerability to HIV.

The Bill also criminalizes failure to report any relevant offences. It therefore compels citizens – including health workers and civil society organizations active in HIV prevention and human rights– to report to the authorities anyone whom they suspect of being homosexual. Furthermore, the Bill would result in the punishment of ’serial offenders’ and those who are living with HIV, with the death penalty.

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About 60 of the 90 people onboard Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed into Mediterranean Sea are confirmed dead, according to Ethiopia's Government Communication Affairs Office (GCAO). Ethiopian government declared January 25 a national day of mourning.
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In what Ethiopian aviation authorities claim to be a rare incident in the history of the Airlines, Flight ET409 with 82 passengers and 8 all-Ethiopian crew members on board crashed in Mediterranean Sea early Monday morning few minutes after it took off from Rafik Hariry International Airport in Beirut.

The incident has come less than two months after the Airline was honoured with the “Airline of the Year Award” by the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), “in recognition of its outstanding, efficient and exemplary provision of Airline Service”.

Sources at Ethiopian said that the most probable cause of the crash is terrorist attack though government and aviation authorities say the cause is not yet established.

“Investigation is still going on about the cause of the crush and hence we cannot confirm it is a terrorist attack. But about 60 bodies, all dead, have been found in the Sea and they are in hospital. Their nationalities and identity will be released as soon as we identify them,” Bereket Simon, Head of GCAO said.

But the BBC quoted witnesses in the area as saying that they have seen parts of the aircraft going down to sea while on fire.

Forces from the UN Interim Mission in Lebanon and Lebanese army and navy are involved in the rescue operation under the rescue team led by Lebanese Minister of Transport, according to Girma Wake, CEO of Ethiopian.

Ethiopian has also contracted rescue professionals from London and “they will be flying to Beirut this afternoon to join the rescue team”. A 14- member Ethiopian team comprising of aviation authorities and airline management, intelligence service as well as medical personnel has already arrived in Libya, according to the latest information from GCAO.

The Boeing 737-800 aircraft departed Beirut at 2:35am and few minutes after it was out of radar and lost every connection with Lebanese aviation authorities, according to Girma.

There were 82 passengers and 8 Ethiopian Crewmembers onboard the crashed aircraft. Of the passengers 23 are Ethiopians, 51 Lebanese, 2 British and the remaining 6 each from France, Turkey, Russia, Canada, Syria and Iraq.

The Boeing 737-800 aircraft was leased from CIT Aerospace, a New York based private company.

Families of the Ethiopian passengers have gathered at the Addis Airport. Girma said the Airlines has organized the families and deployed a team to comfort them till they hear about the status of their families.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that one of the passengers was the wife of French Ambassador to Lebanon.

“What I can confirm is that there were 52 male and 30 female passengers on that Aircraft and the (French) Ambassador’s wife could be one of them,” Girma said in a press conference at Ethiopian Headquarters following the incident.

Though Girma said that there was bad weather at departure, he stated that the cause of the crash is yet to be identified.

“There was bad weather but how bad it was, I don’t know. If it was too bad the crew would not have departed in the first place,” he told reporters.

Ethiopian has a reputation of safety with rare incidents. In 1988 birds entered the engine of a taking off aircraft at Bahirdar Airport, one of the regional airports in Ethiopia, which caused a crash. In 1996 a hijacked airplane from Addis Ababa run out of fuel and while trying to land in Comoros, it short-landed in Indian Ocean in a remarkable landing that helped save some passengers.

“Crashes due to technical failures and crew defect are non-existent in the history of Ethiopian Airlines,” Girma said.

The 737-800 flew from Addis Ababa to Beirut on Sunday on a daily regular flight operation and has no indication of defect both in Addis and Beirut airports.

The last time it went through the regular maintenance and check-up was December 25, 2009.

The aircraft was manufactured in 2000 and entered operations with Ethiopian in September 2009.

An Ethiopian Airlines passenger aircraft has crashed into the Mediterranean shortly after taking off from Beirut, Lebanese officials say.

Contact was lost with the aircraft shortly after take-off early on Monday and witnesses reported seeing a ball of fire plunging into the sea off the coast.

The aircraft bound for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, is thought to have been carrying 83 passengers and up to seven crew.

A Lebanese defence ministry official told the AFP news agency that 10 bodies had been recovered at the crash site by early morning.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut, Rula Amin, said search-and-rescue efforts were being hampered by adverse weather conditions.

"The ships trying to help do not have an easy task .. the weather is stormy, with strong winds, heavy rains and high waves", Amin said.

In the past two days, many parts of Lebanon have suffered harsh wintry storms that have caused heavy flooding and damage in some parts of the country.

UN peacekeepers based in Lebanon have joined the search.

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"[The crash] site has been identified three and a half kilometres west of the [coastal] village of Naameh," Ghazi Aridi, the Lebanese transport minister, said.

The aircraft carried 54 Lebanese nationals, 22 Ethiopians, as well as Iraqi, Syrian, British and French nationals, he said.

Thousands of Ethiopians work as domestic helpers in Lebanon.

There were also several dual nationals including one British-Lebanese, one Canadian-Lebanese and a Russian-Lebanese.

Hoping for news

Our correspondent said relatives of some of those on board the flight had gathered at Beirut airport hoping for news.

According to the Ethiopian Airlines website, the flight from Beirut bound for Addis Ababa is operated by a Boeing 737 aircraft.

The flight had been scheduled to depart from Beirut at 02:10am, landing at Addis Ababa at 7:50am local time.

The 737 is the world's best-selling commercial passenger aircraft and more than 6,000 have been sold or ordered since the aircraft was first introduced in 1967.

The Ethiopian News Agency in Addis Ababa said Ethiopian Airlines had sent a team to Beirut to investigate the crash.

Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, declared Monday a national day of mourning, as the government cancelled a scheduled cabinet meeting.

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15 traders died and twenty got severely injured Saturday night when a lorry they were traveling in overturned in Kamuli district, in eastern Uganda.

According to eastern region police commander, Christoper Okubayi, the lorry was carrying traders from Kidera market to Kamuli when it overturned at a place called Nawantale, about 140 kilometres west of Uganda’s capital Kampala.

"The accident occured at around 7.00 pm last night when a front tyre of a lorry carrying 48 traders burst, the driver lost control and the lorry overturned. The traders were returning from selling their merchandise at a weekly market. 10 died at the spot and the others died on way to hopsital, Okubayi said.

Okubayi attributed the accident to overspeeding. He indicated that if the driver had not been over speeding, the accident would not have been that fatal even with the tyre bursting.

According to police reports, over 10,000 Ugandans die each year in road accidents. The main cause of the accidents is reckless driving and poor condition of the roads.

Although there have been constant road repair works by the government, a good number of them still have deep potholes.

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Nigeria’s political elite are faced with an uneasy and strategic decision making week, as the Federal Court has issued a fourteen-day ultimatum for the nation to mandate a leader. President Umaru Yar’Adua’s two month absence has raised concerns over power vacuum in the country.

The Federal Court, responding to a law suit brought by the opposition, ruled for the cabinet to pass a resolution about whether or not the absentee president is incapable of discharging the functions of his office.

On Thursday, over 1,000 Nigerians gathered in Lagos to protest against Mr. Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence. Some carried posters reading: "Enough of the offshore president and a people’s constitution now."

President Yar’Adua has been in Saudi Arabia for two months, receiving treatment for a heart condition; inflammation of the lining around the heart and a long-standing kidney illness.

Nigerians, according to several sources, concerned by their leader’s absence are mostly angry at the fact that he left the country without handing executive powers to his deputy, as required by the constitution.

The situation has led the Federal Court to rule that the efficiency of Mr. Yar’Adua must be resolved in 14 days. Opposition activist, Farouk Adamu Aliy, had asked for the judges to sack the president over his failing health and for failing to abide by the provisions of the constitution, but some Nigerians have lauded this 14-day ultimatum ruling as a victory for democracy.

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Nonetheless, the ruling has increased tension amongst Nigeria’s northern political elites. The custom in Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party is to alternate power between north and south.

The issue is now about Vice president Goodluck Jonathan who is from the south. According to reports, some northern power-brokers are reluctant for him [Jonathan] to take over, as this would shorten the north’s "turn" in power.

Vice-president Jonathan is being refused a command of the power of patronage; being in a position to influence the outcome of the 2011 election and having a share in the North’s entitled eight (8) years of power created by virtue of the zoning/rotation arrangement in the Nigeria political schematics

This issue of Nigeria’s constitution versus zonal/tribal politics has seen the Yar’Adua-PDP presidency split into three fighting fronts: The so-called kitchen cabinet or Katsina mafia, the Governors’ forum of the party’s old and serving governors and the party stalwarts including former President Olusegun Obasanjo-led Board of Trustees.

As the National Assembly faces a tough week ahead, the Kitchen Cabinet made up of the President’s wife, and other allies, continue to lead the many-pronged exertions to frustrate and prevent any notions of Acting Presidency to shorten the first four-year-term of the ailing Yar’Adua. But sources claimed that the President and his kitchen cabinet’s operatives have lost much ground in the Assembly.

On Thursday, former president Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo urged President Yar’Adua to step down if he is not fit to continue.

"If you take up a job, elected... and then your health starts to fail you and you will not able to deliver, to satisfy yourself and satisfy the people you are supposed to serve, then there is a path of honor and path of morality," he was quoted as advising Mr. Yar’Adua.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces detained nine Muslim Brotherhood members in the Nile Delta north of the capital on Sunday as they prepared for a re-run parliament vote, security sources said.

The re-run was for a seat contested in the 2005 parliamentary election where the Brotherhood had claimed victory. In several seats, the authorities ordered a new vote because of alleged abuses. Many re-runs have been delayed till recent months.

The banned Brotherhood secured a fifth of parliament seats in 2005 when members ran as independents. The authorities have since increasingly squeezed the group out of mainstream politics and analysts say the group is likely to see its bloc shrink in the parliamentary election due later this year.

The nine arrested on Sunday had been supporting the campaign of a Brotherhood member, Hussein Sabi, running for a seat in the Daqahliya governorate in the Nile Delta.

Brotherhood members are regularly rounded up but these arrests were the first since the group's new leader, Mohamed Badeea, was announced on January 16, and follows a trend of detentions before votes for national or local bodies.

Badeea signalled a non-confrontational approach towards President Hosni Mubarak's government and stressed the group's rejection of violence, in his acceptance speech.

HARGEISA (Reuters) - A bomb hidden near a mosque killed four policemen in Somalia's northern breakaway enclave of Somaliland on Monday in the latest attack on security forces in the region, police sources said.

Somaliland is proud of its relative stability compared with southern regions of the failed Horn of Africa state, where hardline al Shabaab rebels control large amounts of territory and are fighting a weak Western-backed government.

Washington accuses al Shabaab of being al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, and security experts say the group wants to extend its influence north -- aiming to destabilise Somaliland and the neighbouring pro-government, semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Monday's blast, which came just days after unidentified attackers hurled hand grenades and fired at the main police station in Las Anod near the Puntland border on January 12, wounding three officers.

The police sources said the device had been hidden among milk cans left near Las Anod's Grand Mosque, and it detonated as they inspected the cans. Two policemen were severely wounded.

In two separate violent incidents in the area late on Sunday, gunmen ambushed and killed a senior police operations officer as he returned home from evening prayers, and a woman was killed by an explosion near Las Anod's hospital.

Earlier this month, Somaliland's security forces said they had foiled an attack on a Hargeisa mosque where the imam had spoken out against suicide bombings carried out by al Shabaab insurgents in southern Somalia.

Al Shabaab hit Somaliland and Puntland with synchronised suicide blasts that killed at least 24 people in October 2008. A court in Hargeisa has sentenced five men to death in absentia for those bombings, and said they were on the run in other parts of Somalia. Somaliland has long sought international recognition as sovereign state. It declared itself independent in 1991.

Analysts worry a simmering political row between the president of Somaliland and opposition parties over delayed elections could trigger a re-arming among clan militias, further violence and more turmoil for al Shabaab to exploit.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Ethiopian Airlines plane with 90 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather early on Monday and the airline's chief executive said there was no word of survivors.

The Boeing 737-800, heading for Addis Ababa, disappeared off the radar some five minutes after taking off at 2:37 a.m. (0037 GMT) during a thunder storm and heavy rain. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said he did not think the plane had been brought down deliberately.

"As of now, a sabotage act is unlikely. The investigation will uncover the cause," Suleiman told a news conference.

Fourteen bodies have so far been recovered near the crash site three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the coastal village of Na'ameh. Eighty-three passengers and seven crew were on the flight, Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said at the airport.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake said he had spoken with Lebanese authorities who did not confirm there were survivors.

Fifty-four of those on board were Lebanese, 22 were Ethiopian, two were British and there were also Canadian, Russian, French, Iraqi and Syrian nationals.

Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton, was on the plane, the French embassy said.

The Lebanese government declared a day of mourning. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visited the airport to meet distraught relatives waiting for news of survivors, some of whom were angry that the plane was allowed to take off in bad weather.

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AFP - Frightened residents flooded a military checkpoint to flee the Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday after Muslim-Christian clashes that killed some 450 people and left scores of buildings burnt.

While the fighting has subsided in the central city and troops have been deployed to end the unrest, fleeing residents said they remained too frightened to stay.

At a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Jos, where long queues of cars and buses carrying fleeing residents formed, soldiers searched all vehicles, an AFP reporter saw. Several vehicles were laden with baggage.

"The last few days have been very traumatising for me and my two children," Samira Yaya, 32, told AFP as she was leaving Jos.

"My husband is out of the country on a business trip. We were indoors without food or water with killings and burnings all around us. I am going to Kano to stay with my family until my husband returns. I feel uneasy here."

Danladi Kabir, a 28-year-old trader, told AFP as he crammed luggage into a taxi that he was leaving Jos for his Jigawa home state in Northern Nigeria.

"My family in Jigawa has been agitated over the fighting in Jos and my safety," he said. "The best way to assure them I am alive is to visit home."

At least 150 bodies were recovered from wells after the clashes, a village head said Saturday, taking the unofficial death toll compiled from various sources to 464.

State officials have given no official death toll for the violence, which broke out on January 17 in Jos, capital of Plateau State, and spread to nearby towns and villages.

Dozens of cars, houses, churches and mosques were also burnt during the four days of unrest. A curfew remained in effect between 5:00 pm and 10:00 am.

The head of Kuru Karama village, Umar Baza, told AFP that 150 bodies were dug out from the wells and that 60 more people were still missing.

Kuru Karama is a Muslim enclave in a Christian region 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Jos.

Global rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) told AFP on Saturday that, according to figures provided by Muslim leaders, at least 364 Muslims died in the clashes.

"As of yesterday (Friday), at least 364 Muslims have died in Jos, including those found in wells in Kuru Karama. This information was provided by Muslim officials in Jos," HRW's spokesman Eric Guttschuss told AFP by telephone from Washington.

Although the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has not provided a comprehensive death toll of its members in the fighting, one of its officials, Chung Dabo, had earlier told AFP that 55 Christians had died.

At the Saint Michael's Catholic Cathedral in Jos, located at the heart of the fighting, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, during his Sunday sermon, appealed for calm.

Before about 3,000 faithful, he castigated both Christians and Muslims involved and those who instigated the deadly fighting.

Christian and Muslim leaders in Plateau State have both said the unrest owed more to the failure of political leaders to address ethnic differences than inter-faith rivalries.

Jos has been a hotbed of religious violence in Nigeria, whose 150 million people are divided almost equally between followers of the two faiths.

An estimated 200 people were killed in religious clashes in the city in late 2008.

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A week after ethnic and religious attacks left between 100 and 400 people dead in the central Nigerian city of Jos, residents are living under the military's control.

A 17-hour curfew is in place and no one knows how long the army will continue to control the capital of the Plateau state.

But residents feel that without the military’s firm grip on the city they will once again be endangered.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reports from Jos.