Nairobi/Abuja - A Nigerian militant group Monday said it had destroyed a major crude pipeline belonging to Shell as it continued with a wave of attacks in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said that engineers and fighters used explosives to destroy a Shell pipeline in Rivers State.

The report could not immediately be verified.

MEND on Sunday declared an "oil war" after Nigerian military forces attacked militant positions with gunboats and helicopters.

Nairobi/Abuja  - Nigerian militants who have declared an "oil war" Monday said they attacked and destroyed an oil flow station complex owned by Shell in the restive Niger Delta province.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said Sunday it had begun operation "Hurricane Barbarossa" after Nigerian military forces attacked militant positions with gunboats and helicopters.

Nairobi/Kigali  - Rwandans went to the polls Monday to vote in parliamentary elections, with President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) expected to stroll to victory.

The poll is the second parliamentary election since the 1994 massacre, when the Hutu militia and military massacred 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.

Tutsi-dominated forces led by Kagame ended the slaughter.

Some 53 seats are up for grabs on Monday, while 24 female MPs will be elected Tuesday by provincial and city councils.

Nairobi/Kigali - Rwandans were set to vote Monday in the second parliamentary elections since the genocide that tore the country apart in 1994.

A coalition led by Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) is expected to romp to victory once more in a complicated election that will be monitored by a team of European Union election observers.

Rwanda has taken great strides since the 1994 massacre, when the Hutu militia and military massacred 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.

Nairobi, Sept. 12 : Kenyan police have increased security for Barack Obama''s African relatives after thieves tried to break into the village home of his step-grandmother.

Sarah Hussein Onyango, 86, said that she woke to find her front door had been kicked down and someone had tampered with her solar panel, installed so that she can watch the US presidential race on television.

Following the incident, officers said they may install a small police post in the village of Kogelo, in remote western Kenya, where Mr Obama''s father grew up herding goats.

Nairobi- Kenyan police are stepping up security in the village of US presidential candidate Barack Obama's grandmother after thieves targeted her home, reports said Thursday.

Obama's grandmother Sarah, 86, said burglars broke in through her kitchen door in the western Kenyan village of Kogello and attempted to steal a solar panel from her roof.

"I don't understand the motive of the thieves, since nothing was stolen from the kitchen," Sarah Obama told The Daily Nation.