A Dutch court has sentenced five Somali men to five years in prison for attacking a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden last year, in the first such case to come to trial in Europe. The men were convicted in Rotterdam of attacking a Dutch Antilles-flagged ship, the Samanyolu. They were arrested last year when their high-speed boat was intercepted by a Danish frigate.

Twenty South African boys have died following botched circumcisions in the Eastern Cape Province. "The deaths occurred over the past 12 days, with nine of them occurring over the past 24 hours," said a provincial health spokesperson. Some 60 boys have been rescued from 11 initiation schools which have since been closed. Circumcision is seen as a rite of passage into manhood in some South African communities

The United States has welcomed the release by a Rwandan court of Peter Erlinder, an American lawyer who had been detained since May on charges of denying the 1994 genocide. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said US embassy officials were at the court hearing and immediately shared the news with Mr Erlinder's family.

Zimbabwe has finally launched the programme to rewrite the country’s constitution but financial constraints, political intimidation and violence threaten the 90 day consultation process. Launching the long delayed programme to replace the constitution adopted at independence from Britain in 1980 on Wednesday, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara made impassioned pleas for peace.

Two Sudan rebel leaders appeared before the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges on Thursday over a 2007 attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur. Describing themselves as revolutionaries, Mr Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Mr Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus said they welcomed the chance to clear their names and urged other war crimes suspects to also hand themselves over.