Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

A maritime watchdog says suspected Somali pirates hijacked a Kenyan-flagged fishing boat with European and African crew last week.

"The vessel was taken hostage in waters off the Kenyan and Seychellois coasts last week" Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, said Tuesday.

Sudan says it has recaptured a strategic district from rebels in the war-torn western region of Darfur, while the rebels deny the claim.

"The Sudanese armed forces are currently in control of all of the Jebel Marra plateau," military spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told a news conference on Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will help Zimbabwe as much as possible in view of the sanctions imposed on Harare by the West.

Ahmadinejad made the remarks during a meeting with Zimbabwean Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Didymus Mutasa in Tehran on Monday.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has banned cabinet ministers from taking foreign trips, urging them to stay home and attend parliamentary debate on a proposed new constitution.

The measure was taken to prevent a postponement of parliament proceedings due to the absence of ministers who are out of the country on government business, government spokesman Alfred Mutua told reporters in Nairobi on Monday, the Press TV correspondent in the Kenyan capital reported.

Togo's government has moved to block a planned rally by opposition parties to protest against the result of the country's presidential election, won by Faure Gnassingbe, the incumbent president.

Tensions have run high in the West African state in the wake of the elections, with the opposition announcing it would hold demonstrations on Tuesday.

Nigeria has sent troops to the violence-hit central city of Jos, where officials say clashes have left more that 500 people, mostly women and children, killed.

Authorities say at least 95 people have been arrested, while the military was on standby to avert any further unrest in the troubled tow, which has been a hotbed of violence in recent months.

Nigerian authorities say they have arrested scores of people in connection with attacks near the central city of Jos that left more than 200 people dead.

"We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act," Dan Manjang, an adviser to the Plateau State government told the AFP news agency.

Guinea's military junta has finally set a date for its first presidential election in a plan to steer the West African nation from military rule.

The country's interim leader, General Sekouba Konate, has signed a decree, setting June 27 as the date for the poll.

Nigeria's acting president has ordered security forces to hunt down those behind an attack near the central city of Jos that left more than 200 people dead.

Security officials - facing criticism for failing to prevent another outburst of sectarian violence only weeks after hundreds died in Muslim-Christian clashes - said they had arrested scores of people in connection with the attacks.

In this edition of Peter Lavelle's crosstalk, he asks his guests whether aid to Africa in its current form could in fact be counterproductive.