Nairobi - Kenya's government speaker on Tuesday delivered an eagerly awaited ruling that did nothing to break the deadlock in a government spat which has paralysed Parliament and threatened to dissolve the increasingly fragile coalition government. Prime Minister Raila Odinga is battling Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka for control of government business in Parliament.

President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) says the constitution gave the president the right to appoint Musyoka as the head of government business.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Two European aid workers employed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who were kidnapped in Somalia over a week ago have been released, reports said Tuesday. The BBC cited militant Islamist group al-Shabaab as saying it had released the Danish nurse and Belgian doctor.

However, a regional spokeswoman for MSF in the Kenyan capital Nairobi could not immediately confirm the reports.

The pair were taken nine days ago on the way to Hudur, the capital of the Bakol region in south-west Somalia.

Nairobi - Two men on Monday pleaded guilty to illegal ivory possession in Kenya after they being arrested in one of East Africa's biggest seizures in recent years, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.

Paul Udoto, spokesman for KWS, said the two men - a Kenyan and a Tanzanian - were arrested with 512 kilograms of elephant tusks near the Kenyan-Tanzania border on Saturday.

Nairobi - Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has warned that new elections may be the only way to solve an ever-widening rift in the coalition government formed early in 2008 to end the post-election violence that ripped the county apart. Odinga is battling Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka for control of government business in parliament.

Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) says the constitution gave the president the right to appoint Musyoka as the head of government business.

Odingai is furious, believing it is part of attempts to sideline him.

Nairobi/Dakar - The international lobby group Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday warned that the military in Guinea was escalating the number of human rights abuses against civilians. The west African state has been in flux since the death of long- serving president Lansana Conte last December, after which the army seized power and suspended the constitution.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - At least seven persons were killed when armed militias attacked the Somalian parliament building on Saturday, the radio broadcaster Radion Garowe reported Sunday. At least three mortars struck the building in an attack coming shortly after deputies had met to debate the government's new budget proposals, the radio said.

Parliamentary speaker Aden Madobe said no deputies were injured, but among those killed was a security official. Other mortars struck nearby apartment buildings and a student dormitory, killing a number of pupils. About 15 people were wounded, the report said.