A bomb tore through a bar in a military barracks in Nigeria’s restive Muslim north, killing 10 people just hours after a southern Christian president was inaugurated.

At least 800 people were killed in post election violence that swept across northern Nigeria as it became clear that a northern candidate would not succeed in unseating the southern president, an international human rights group said.

Rioting erupted in Nigeria’s Muslim north today as official election results likely to keep a Christian leader in charge were being prepared for release.

Nigeria’s parliament empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa’s most populous nation in place of an ill and absent president, striving for a political end to a crisis that ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil sector.

Troop reinforcements on foot and in armoured personnel carriers appeared today to have quelled two days of violence that left hundreds dead in a central Nigerian city.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a congratulatory round of meetings with officials of the new unified Sudanese government today, but expressed outrage that Sudanese security forces manhandled aides and reporters accompanying her.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says there has been progress in Darfur but the world will not accept mere promises from Sudan’s new government to halt the violence.

A Nigerian couple, who were sentenced to death by stoning in August for committing adultery, have not been told of their sentences, their lawyer said today.