SOMALIA

Somali gunmen kidnapped three aid workers working for Danish Demining Group in northern Somalia on Tuesday, the humanitarian agency said, the second capture of Western aid agency staff working in the region this month.

A grenade attack on a bar in the center of Nairobi early Monday wounded 12 people, Kenyan police said, an incident that comes as Nairobi battles al-Qaida-linked militants in neighboring Somalia.

Kenya said Somalia's al Shabaab militants were on the run after it deployed more troops and struck rebel targets by air to secure its border from rebels Nairobi accuses of kidnapping foreigners on its soil.

The African force protecting Somalia's government acknowledged on Friday at least 10 of its troops had been killed in battle in Mogadishu and said the true toll could still climb, after rebels showed dozens of bodies.

Cooperation between Somalia's al Qaeda linked militants and pirate gangs is growing as the al Shabaab group becomes more desperate for funding, the head of the U.N.'s counter-piracy unit said on Thursday.

Kenya must take care not to let its cross-border incursion into Somalia to secure its border from al Qaeda-linked militants turn into a drawn-out campaign, former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan said on Thursday.

Kenyan and Somali troops advanced on an Islamist-held town in southern Somalia on Thursday and African Union peacekeepers moved on one of the last pockets under militant control in the capital Mogadishu.

Kenyan officials visited Somalia today to attempt to calm fears after last week's incursion into Somalian territory.

Mining companies would be banned from investing in Eritrea's potentially booming minerals sector under a draft U.N. resolution that Security Council members are due to start negotiating on Tuesday.

Ugandan police briefly arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Tuesday and said they would charge 15 protesters with treason in an effort to quell demonstrations against rising prices.

Somali militants linked to al Qaeda prepared to defend a town in southern Somalia on Tuesday from advancing Kenyan and government troops, while a suicide car bomb killed six people in the capital during a visit by a Kenyan minister.

Hundreds of al-Shabab fighters have amassed at a location where they believe Kenyan forces that crossed into.

The Kenyan shilling reversed earlier losses to close firmer against the dollar on Monday for the fourth straight session, helped by new limits on the amount of foreign exchange banks can hold, while stocks edged up on bets the recent sell-off was overdone.

Al Qaeda linked al Shabaab militants rushed reinforcements to Somalia's southern border with Kenya on Monday in response to a Kenyan cross-border offensive and theatened to take the flames of war across.

Kenya deployed columns of troops into neighbouring Somalia and launched an offensive against al-Shabaab militants on Sunday, helping to drive the al-Qaida-linked militants out of two bases.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday it had suspended non-critical operations at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp as security forces scoured the region for two Spanish aid workers kidnapped from there a day earlier.

Gunmen kidnapped two Spanish women working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp on Thursday, the third abduction of Westerners in Kenya by attackers linked to Somalia in a month.

Kenyan police told Reuters that both kidnap victims are women and that they believe al-Shabab, the Somali militant group linked to al-Qaeda, are responsible.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are renowned for their philanthropic efforts, have given a large donation of $340,000 to Humanitarian Initiative Just Relief Aid, to cover the health care for children, who have been left homeless in war-torn Somalia.

The power couple donated $340,000 to aid the drought and famine crisis.

Of all the falsehoods to attach themselves to President Barack Obama, perhaps the most outrageous is the one that Mitt Romney trotted out during a foreign policy speech on Friday: that Obama is an America apologist who has undercut the country's military.