KADUNA, Nigeria | Thu Jan 3, 2013 8:26am EST

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed four people and burned down a police station in northeast Adamawa state, the police said on Thursday, the latest such attack in a region where Islamist sect Boko Haram has its stronghold.

A soldier, a policeman, a civilian and her grandchild were killed by unknown gunmen and a local government office was destroyed in the town of Song, near the border with Cameroon, Adamawa police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim told Reuters. He said it happened around midnight on Wednesday.

At least 37 people have now died in Nigeria's northeast in the last 10 days alone in violence presumed to be linked to Islamist militancy, the biggest threat to stability in Africa's main oil exporter.

There was a similar attack in another town in Adamawa last week when police said one person was killed, although local media reports, quoting eye-witnesses, said 20 died.

Authorities in the northeast have in the past played down their own casualties in fighting with Boko Haram.

The sect, which is loosely based on the Afghan Taliban, killed hundreds last year in a campaign to impose sharia, or Islamic law. Nigeria's more than 160 million people are split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

Boko Haram's violence remains focused mostly on security forces in the northeast, although its attacks have spread across the north and to the capital Abuja.

President Goodluck Jonathan has been unable to stop the rebellion despite waves of military offensives in the northeast and other parts of northern and central Nigeria where Boko Haram has a strong presence.

Jonathan said this week that most suspects behind major bombings in Nigeria had been arrested and attacks by what he called "terrorists" would be over soon.

Around 3,000 people have been killed in violence linked to Boko Haram since the group's uprising in 2009, human rights groups say.

(Reporting by Isaac Abrak; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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KABUL | Mon Dec 24, 2012 2:03am EST

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan policewoman shot dead on Monday a U.S. forces member in the compound of the chief of police in the capital, Kabul, police and Afghanistan's NATO-led force said.

"A U.S. police adviser was killed in an attack by an Afghan policewoman," a spokesman for the NATO force said.

Mohammad Zahir, head of the police criminal investigation department, described the incident as an "insider attack" in which Afghan forces turn their weapons on Western troops they are supposed to be working with.

It appeared to be the first time that a woman member of Afghanistan's security forces shot a member of the Western coalition in an insider attack.

The incidents have undermined trust between coalition and Afghan forces who are under mounting pressure to contain the Taliban insurgency before most NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

At least 52 members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force have been killed this year by Afghans wearing police or army uniforms.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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1 of 5. Police use water cannons to disperse demonstrators near the presidential palace during a protest rally in New Delhi December 22, 2012. Indian police used batons, tear gas and water cannon to turn back thousands of people marching on the presidential palace on Saturday in intensifying protests against the gang-rape of a woman on the streets and on social media.

NEW DELHI | Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:23am EST

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police used batons, tear gas and water cannon to turn back thousands of people marching on the presidential palace on Saturday in intensifying protests against the gang-rape of a woman on the streets and on social media.

The 23-year-old victim is battling for her life in hospital after she was beaten, raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus on a busy New Delhi street last Sunday. Five people have been arrested.

The protesters, largely college students, are demanding the death penalty for the accused and safety assurances for women.

New Delhi, home to about 16 million people, has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities. Police figures show a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some other form of sexual attack every 14 hours.

Appealing for calm, India's junior minister for home affairs, R.P.N. Singh, said the government had listened to the protesters.

"We have assured on the floor of the house and on every platform possible that strictest action will be taken against the accused. The police have been asked to show restraint but I want to tell boys and girls that breaking barriers will not help," Singh said.

But the protests are growing amid widespread media coverage.

"If Rahul Gandhi claims to be a youth icon then he should have been here, talking to protesters and taking up the issue of women's safety," one protester said.

Gandhi, the 42-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled India for most of its 65 years of independence, is widely seen as a future prime minister.

Marches, demonstrations and candlelight vigils have spread during the week to cities in states from the north of the country to the south.

In the northeastern state of Assam, hundreds of women and girls marched through the city of Guwahati on Friday, carrying placards and shouting "Hang Rapists" and "Stop Violence Against Women".

(Additional reporting by Anuja Jairam; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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1 of 9. Gu Kailai (front, C), wife of ousted Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Bo Xilai, attends a trial in the court room at Hefei Intermediate People's Court in this still image taken from video August 9, 2012.

HEFEI, China | Thu Aug 9, 2012 10:41pm EDT

HEFEI, China (Reuters) - China pressed ahead with an offensive against ousted politician Bo Xilai on Friday, a day after the murder trial of his wife, with a separate prosecution of four police officers accused of trying to cover up the killing that she was accused of.

The dismissed officers went on trial for "bending the law to show favoritism" by shielding Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, from an inquiry into the death of Briton Neil Heywood.

Gu stood trial for poisoning the businessman over a financial transaction that went sour, according to a court statement. She did not dispute the murder charge during Thursday's seven-hour, closed-door trial hearing and a verdict will soon be delivered, the statement said.

Heywood's death in November and its alleged cover-up in Bo's stronghold of Chongqing, the southwestern municipality he ran, was central to the torrent of events that toppled him from the Politburo and exposed the ruling Communist Party to its worst upheaval in decades.

The party's priority now is ensuring top-down control before a handover of power to a new generation of leaders this year.

The legal noose is tightening fast on Bo's wife and police involved in investigating the murder case, suggesting there is a danger Bo could himself face charges of masterminding a cover-up and could risk a lengthy jail term.

The South China Morning Post said on Friday that Bo's former Chongqing police chief, Wang Lijun, would stand trial as early as next week in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Wang sought temporary refuge in Chengdu's U.S. consulate in February after sources said he told Bo that Gu was a murder suspect.

Wang's dramatic flight to the U.S. mission triggered the murder scandal that quickly led to Bo's downfall. Until then, Heywood's death had been officially attributed to a possible heart attack brought on by excessive alcohol consumption.

Chinese media stuck to the terse official account of Gu's trial on Friday, despite avid public interest in this scandal that has exposed the fusion of wealth and privilege in China's political elite, and exposed rifts in the party.

Bo, 63, has not been a focus of the proceedings so far. But most experts believe the trial and almost certain conviction of his wife Gu and the four police officers is a prelude to his punishment, which could include a criminal trial.

VERDICT WON'T BE DELAYED

The court in the eastern Chinese city Hefei did not say when it would announce any verdict against Gu. But the usual wait was about a fortnight said Chen Guangwu, a criminal defense attorney who has followed the Chongqing scandal closely.

"But they won't delay for too long, because this case is being heard in order to pave the way for dealing with Bo Xilai himself," said Chen, who is based in eastern Shandong province.

"This case is in part about testing the waters for that. That is, they will sentence her and see what reaction there is in society and public opinion."

Bo's downfall has stirred more public division than that of any other party leader for over 30 years. To leftist supporters, Bo became a charismatic rallying figure for efforts to reimpose party control over dizzying and unequal market growth. To liberal critics, Bo was a dangerous opportunist who yearned to impose his harsh policies on the entire country.

As the four sacked officers went on trial, also in Hefei, Chinese police cordoned off the courthouse and excluded foreign reporters from the hearing. Vans parked nearby were bristling with video surveillance equipment.

A court spokeswoman said the case would start at 8:30 (0030 GMT). "It's open to the public but I'm afraid all the places are full at this time," she said.

The four men on trial - Guo Weiguo, Li Yang, Wang Pengfei and Wang Zhi -- were senior police officers in Chongqing who allegedly sought to stymie an investigation into Heywood's death in a hilltop hotel villa overlooking Chongqing.

On Thursday, a court official said prosecutors believed Bo's wife, Gu, and a family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, killed Heywood by pouring poison down his throat after a business dispute led Gu to believe Heywood had threatened her son, Bo Guagua, then a student at Harvard University.

During Gu's seven-hour hearing on Thursday, it was alleged Heywood had written a letter to Guagua, threatening to "destroy" him, said a source who had been briefed on the hearing. Heywood and Guagua had fallen into dispute over Heywood's demand for a fee to help arrange a 130 million pounds ($200 million) financial transaction, the source added.

Guagua, believed to be in the United States after graduating this year from Harvard University, denied there was such a deal of that value but appeared to confirm the letter's existence.

"I cannot comment on any of the details (of the letter), but I can disclose that there is no such thing as either possessing or transferring 130 million pounds," Guagua said in an e-mail sent to Reuters. ($1 = 0.6396 British pounds)

(Writing and additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Israeli soldiers guard the border with Egypt at the Kerem Shalom crossing, a military zone where the borders of Israel, Egypt and Gaza intersect, and where an Egyptian military vehicle that was seized by Islamist gunmen tried to storm the border into Israel on Sunday, August 8, 2012.

CAIRO | Thu Aug 9, 2012 5:10am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police fought gunmen in northern Sinai's main town of al-Arish on Thursday, state television reported, a day after security forces began a crackdown on Islamist militants in the region.

"Clashes resumed between armed men and police forces in front of police station number two in al-Arish," Nile News television reported, citing its correspondent there.

It did not identify the gunmen. No further details were available and security officials could not immediately be reached for comment. A Reuters correspondent in al-Arish said the town was now calm after the reported clashes.

The army's security sweep follows an attack on border guards on Sunday by gunmen who then stormed through an Israeli border crossing. Israel said it was a "wake-up call" for Egypt to take a firmer grip on a region threatened by growing lawlessness.

Egyptian aircraft struck at suspected militant targets near the border and troops raided villages on Wednesday after Sunday's attack in which 16 Egyptian border guards were killed.

The Egyptian army was bringing in extra troops, tanks and other armored vehicles to al-Arish on Thursday to expand the security operation, a security source said.

(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Additional reporting by Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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