A suicide bomber rammed an SUV loaded with explosives into a Catholic church holding Mass on Sunday in northern Nigeria, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 100 others in an attack that sparked reprisal killings in the city, authorities and witnesses said.

Gunmen armed with rifles and machetes attacked a rural village in northern Nigeria today, killing at least 10 people, including worshippers leaving a mosque after prayers.

Suicide bombers killed 21 people in attacks on three churches in Nigeria during Sunday services, exacerbating religious tensions in a West African nation that is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians.

Three suicide bomb attacks on churches rocked a northern Nigerian state yesterday, killing at least 21 people and wounding about 100.

At least 12 people were killed and 80 wounded in bomb attacks on three churches in Nigeria today.

Three churches in northern Nigeria have been targeted by bomb blasts injuring dozens of worshippers.

Journalists in Nigeria, already the target of threats and bribes, face a new danger after a radical Islamist sect bombed the offices of a major newspaper and vowed to “hit the media hard” in Africa’s most populous nation.

At least six people have died in two bomb attacks on newspaper offices in Nigeria.

Gunmen suspected of being members of a radical Islamist sect have killed at least four people – including a six-year-old girl – in recent attacks in Nigeria’s volatile north-east, authorities said today.

A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives on a busy road yesterday morning after apparently turning away from attacking Nigerian churches holding Easter services, killing at least 38 people in a massive blast that rattled Kaduna.

An explosion has struck a city in central Nigeria, causing unknown injuries, police said.

The Briton and Italian kidnapped in Nigeria were abducted by a splinter cell of a radical Islamist sect and murdered before a failed commando rescue operation, the nation’s secret police said.

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.

AT least 600 people have been killed in violence between Muslim and Christian ethnic groups in Nigeria, triggered by opposition protests against President Goodluck Jonathan’s victory in the April 16 election, a local civic group says.

Riots broke out again in Nigeria’s Muslim north today, 24 hours after protesters set fire to churches and homes of ruling party supporters when national election results showed that the Christian candidate had won.

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.

BIRD flu poses a major threat to Africa’s fight against its AIDS epidemic, challenging overburdened healthcare systems and stretching economies already hit by the impact of HIV, the UN’s AIDS chief said yesterday.

A NIGERIAN official has warned that bird flu was fast spreading in the country, and a UN expert said the strain may have surfaced in a second African country.

A Nigerian official has warned that bird flu was fast spreading in the country, and a UN expert said the strain may have surfaced in a second African country.

A deadly strain of bird flu may have emerged in eight of Nigeria’s 36 states, authorities said yesterday, amid concerns the virus had been spreading long before officials knew it was in Africa.

Health authorities in Nigeria today prepared to screen dozens of people who worked on a farm hit by a deadly bird flu strain, amid fears the virus may have for the first time in Africa spread to humans.

The spread of bird flu from Asia to eastern Europe and now west Africa has increased the chance that the virus will mutate and cause a possible pandemic among humans, says the United Nations’ expert on the disease.

AFRICA'S first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu has spread to at least four farms, Nigerian officials said, as the continent braced itself for a possible epidemic.

Authorities reported Africa’s first case of a deadly bird-flu strain, saying officials in afflicted Nigeria need help to prevent its spread on an impoverished continent poorly equipped to fight an outbreak.

THE deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected on a large commercial chicken farm in Nigeria - the first reported outbreak in Africa, the World Organisation for Animal Health said yesterday.

A “highly pathogenic” strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in poultry stocks in Nigeria – the first reported case of the disease in Africa, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health said today.

A Nigerian court today handed down prison sentences to four men for the 2005 kidnapping of two British oil workers, the prosecution said.

NIGERIA’S newly re-elected President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday ignored a torrent of claims that his spectacular victory was achieved by crude vote-rigging.

A Nigerian opposition politician today accused the ruling party of “massive rigging” in presidential elections that showed the incumbent Olusegun Obasanjo with an overwhelming lead.

THE deputy governor of a largely Islamic state in northern Nigeria has called on Muslims to kill the Nigerian writer of a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant that sparked deadly religious riots.

MISS World officials yesterday vigorously denied the beauty pageant had caused last week’s violent riots in Nigeria that left over 200 people dead.

The chairman of Miss World has vigorously denied that the beauty pageant caused the riots in Nigeria that left dozens of people dead.

Relieved contestants from the Miss World beauty pageant were tonight settling down in Britain after fleeing rioting in Nigeria.

The casualty toll from four days of religious riots between Muslims and Christians in the northern city of Kaduna has more than doubled to 215 killed, a senior Red Cross official said today.

The Miss World pageant in Nigeria was cancelled last night after rioting over newspaper reports on the event killed around 100 people and injured 500.

THE Miss World beauty contest is to go ahead despite the deaths of at least 100 people in riots in Nigeria over the hosting of the competition.

The Miss World riots in northern Nigeria have claimed more than 100 lives, the Red Cross said today, as thousands of Muslims sought refuge in army bases and police stations from mobs of revenge seeking Christian youths.

RIOTING Muslim youths killed at least four people yesterday in northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, one witness said, as protests against the Miss World beauty pageant spread.

Four people were stabbed or burned to death in Nigeria during a second day of violent demonstrations over a newspaper article suggesting Islam’s founding prophet might have chosen a wife from among Miss World beauty contestants.

Rioters burned down a Nigerian newspaper office today in protest at an article suggesting the Prophet Muhammad might have favoured marrying a contestant in the Miss World beauty contest.

A soldier from the Nigerian army has killed seven people in an attack on Muslim worshippers near the army barracks in Kaduna state.