Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

Somali pirates have released a Turkish ship and its 21 crew four months after the cargo boat was hijacked in the Indian Ocean, reports say.

"The captain told us all personnel...were very happy and excited after the recent developments and that everybody was healthy and safe" Reuters quoted Nilgun Yamaner, a lawyer for the ship's operating company, as saying on Thursday.

South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Wednesday that he supports the Olympia Food Co-op's boycott of Israeli products.

France has declared war on al-Qaeda, after launching its first attack on one of the group's bases in North Africa.

"We are at war with al-Qaeda," Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, said on Tuesday, several days after special forces carried out a strike against an al-Qaeda base on the Mauritania-Mali border.

Four South African former students have pled guilty to charges of humiliating black housekeepers in a case which has strained the country's race relations.

The four, all white men, were filmed three years ago apparently forcing black employees to eat food mixed with urine.

African Union leaders have pledged to beef up the AU mission in Somalia with 2,000 extra troops as part of strategies to counter the growing militancy in the country.

African heads of states and delegates concluded their summit in Uganda's capital Kampala on Tuesday, vowing to reinforce the 6,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers currently deployed in Somalia amid reprisal attacks between al-Shabab fighters and AU and government forces.

The president of Puntland authority Abdirahman Mohamed Farole says al-Shabab fighters have attacked his administration but have been repelled.

The country's security forces dealt a heavy blow killing 14 of their fighters and injuring at least 32 others after they attacked an army post near the commercial capital, Bosasso, the president told a press conference in the regional town of Garowe on Monday.

The French president has confirmed the death of a hostage held by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) and vowed that the killers will be punished.

Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that the group, which has claimed responsibility for the death of Michel Germaneau, a French engineer, has "no respect for human life".

Militants from a group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb say they have killed a French national held hostage since April.

In an audio message statement on Al-Jazeera on Sunday, the leader of the group said the 78-year-old Michel Germaneau, who was abducted on April 22 in Niger, has been killed.

Fresh clashes have broken out between al-Shabab fighters and Somali government troops in the restive capital of Mogadishu, killing at least eight people and injuring many others.

Five people lost their lives and seven were injured late Saturday as Somali government troops backed by African Union soldiers exchanged heavy gunfire with al-Shabab fighters, Associated Press quoted the head of Mogadishu ambulance service Ali Muse as saying.

More than 30 African heads of state have gathered on Sunday for an African Union summit in Kampala, the Ugandan capital. The leaders urged for a united front against al-Shabab, a Somali-based group responsible for a recent bombing in Kampala that claimed 70 civilian lives. But some warn that upping the fight with al-Shabab could play into the groups' hands. Andrew Simmons reports from Kampala. [July 25, 2010]