Burundi arrests 'coup plotters'

Thirteen soldiers in Burundi have been arrested for plotting a coup to overthrow President Pierre Nkurunziza, the army chief of staff has said.

Major Gen Godefroid Niyombare said the 12 soldiers and one officer had been caught in a meeting near Lake Tanganyika earlier on Friday.

Correspondents say there are fears this may affect elections due in June.

They will be the second polls to be held in country since the end of the deadly 12-year, ethnic-based civil war.

Major Gen Niyombare said those arrested were from both the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

Investigations were ongoing and more arrests should be expected, he added.

In 2007, former President Domitien Ndayizeye was acquitted of charges of plotting a coup.

A former rebel leader himself, President Nkurunziza was elected five years ago under a deal to end the years of conflict between the Tutsi army and Hutu rebels.

Some 300,000 people are believed to have died during the war.

Nigeria rebels attack oil pipeline

Armed men in the Niger delta of Nigeria say they have attacked an oil pipeline overnight, putting a two-month truce with the government in doubt.

A faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it attacked the pipeline.

A spokesman said it was because the government was delaying peace talks due to the absence of ill President Umaru Yar'Adua, who is in Saudi Arabia.

Attacks have cost Nigeria millions in lost revenue over the years.

The faction said, in an e-mailed statement, that the "warning strike" was carried out by 35 men on five boats with assault rifles, rocket launchers and heavy-calibre machine guns.

It said the pipeline was in Abonemma, about 50km (30 miles) west of Port Harcourt.

Nigeria's military has not commented on the attack.

Peace talks were suspended when President Yar'Adua was hospitalised in late November in Saudi Arabia.

Mend said it would review the ceasefire within 30 days.

"While the Nigerian government has conveniently tied the advancement of talks on the demands of this group to a sick president, it has not tied the repair of pipelines, exploitation of oil and gas as well as the deployment and re-tooling of troops in the region to the president's ill health," it said.

Congo trial starts road to justice

Amid the tall grass where boys are playing football, the remains of destroyed brick houses still stand.

These are the relics of a local five-year civil war in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that saw some 60,000 people lose their lives.

It was us that chose to fight along side him. We did so willingly, we were scared of him so we joined him Bahati

We are in the outskirts of Bunia, in Ituri district, and the hunting ground of former warlord Thomas Lubanga, the first person to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague (ICC).

The boys playing football were all child combatants, operating under Mr Lubanga's command.

As head of the UPC - a militia made up of the Hema ethnic group - his ragtag army fought ethnic battles over gold and mining rights with the "rival" Lendu community.

It was one of the bloodiest conflicts DR Congo has ever seen and more than 30,000 child soldiers were fighters during the war, taken on by all sides.

Bahati, one of the boys kicking the ball, was just 11 when he was recruited by the rebels. He was given an Uzi machine gun and taught to fight.

He rose through the ranks to become Mr Lubanga's personal bodyguard. And he earned more then than he does now.

It has kept him loyal.