The leader of Tunisia's main Islamist movement has returned home after 22 years in exile following the ousting of President Ben Ali earlier this month.  

Youths dragged people from their cars and murdered them at illegal roadblocks in central Nigeria over the weekend, while rioters burned fuel stations and homes in the latest clashes between Christian and Muslim gangs.

Over 99 percent of voters in Sudan's south chose to separate from the north in a plebiscite intended to end decades of civil war, a referendum official said on Sunday announcing preliminary results.

The man who detonated a bomb at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow on January 25, killing 35 people, was a 20-year-old from the North Caucasus, the Russian Investigative Committee said on January 29.

More than 100 people have been killed during anti-government protests that have swept Egypt, according to reports from medical sources, hospitals and witnesses.

At least 10 people are reported to have died in a train crash in eastern Germany.

Tunisia's unity government weathered another shake-up on January 28 as the foreign minister resigned and Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi announced the composition of a cabinet that includes 12 new ministers.  

President Hosni Mubarak has defended the role of Egypt's security forces in suppressing anti-government protests which have rocked the country.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said on January 28 he would dissolve parliament next Tuesday and announce the date of a general election, in which the ruling Fianna Fail party is expected to suffer a heavy defeat.

The Tunisian Government ditched loyalists to its ousted president on January 27 a move which won backing from the powerful labor union and could help defuse protests which have inspired people across the Middle East.