The UN Representative in Guinea-Bissau on Friday called "calm and serenity" there after the US charged its former military chief with drug trafficking and seeking to sell arms to Colombian rebels. "The government and the armed forces must remain calm. It would be counter-productive to react," Jose Ramos Horta, a former president of East Timor, told journalists. "True or false, the accusations made against General Indjai must respect the principle of law that presumes innocence," he added. "Just because someone says A or B, that does not make him guilty."

In a widening plot involving the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, the United States Thursday charged its coup leader with drug trafficking and seeking to sell arms to Colombian rebels. Former army chief Antonio Indjai, the nation's top military leader, was accused of four counts of conspiring to sell surface-to-air missiles to FARC rebels to shoot down US patrol helicopters and of seeking to import huge amounts of cocaine into the United States.

The west African nations of Burkina Faso and Niger both expressed satisfaction Tuesday after the International Court of Justice settled a border dispute that dated back to French colonial times. In a highly technical ruling, the ICJ in The Hague demarcated the territory of the two countries in an area that stretched for about 380 kilometres (236 miles), more than half the length of their border.

By David Rohde and Clara Ferreira-Marques NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - FBI agents have arrested a man who worked as a representative of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz' operations in Guinea, as part of a U.S. probe into alleged corruption in the mineral-rich West African country.