A diet rich in olive oil, nuts, fish, poultry and certain fruits and vegetables may have a powerful effect at staving off Alzheimer’s disease, researchers have reported.

THE upper chamber of the National Assembly yesterday confirmed two additional ministerial nominees sent by the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, with advice from Senators that they should prove their worth in the few remaining months of the administration.

TO consolidate on its development programmes at the grassroots, the Ogun Waterside Local Government Area of Ogun State has proposed a budget of N1,842,985,500 for the 2010 fiscal year.

Apprehensive of the rising opposition against the second term ambition of Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, National Assembly (NASS) members from the state have resolved

A plot to dethrone the monarch of Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Josiah Nwakobi, has been aborted by the Igwe’s cabinet, chiefs and the youth.

A coup has taken place in Niger and the president has been captured after a gun battle in the capital, Niamey.

In a television announcement, a spokesman for the plotters said Niger's constitution had been suspended and all state institutions dissolved.

The country was now being led by a group called the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), the spokesman said.

AT last, the earthly journey ended for Nigeria’s former First Lady, Maryam Babangida, 61, after bowing  to ovarian cancer at the UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Los Angeles, the United States (US) in the early hours of yesterday.

Concern for the health of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the Libyan sentenced to life in prison for the Lockerbie bombing, grew in Tripoli yesterday after a medical report said his cancer had spread.

OPEC will keep supply unchanged when it meets tomorrow in Angola, Algeria's Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said yesterday.

A strong earthquake destroyed several buildings in Malawi yesterday, killing at least three people and injuring about 200, a government official said.

Egypt is stepping up security on its border with the Gaza Strip after earth moving equipment came under fire from the Palestinian side for three days, a security source said on Saturday.

Artillery shelling between Islamist rebels and Somali government forces killed at least 14 people and wounded 28 others in Mogadishu yesterday, residents and a rights group said.

A group of mostly elderly Christian women said to have been arrested last week for practising a religion not endorsed by the Eritrean government have been released in the capital, a diplomat said yesterday.

Former South African Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, whose AIDS policies drew international opprobrium, died yesterday after battling liver disease, SAPA news agency reported.

The United States (US) is to commit $2.7 bil-lion to help fight HIV infection in Kenya where more than a million people are living with the disease.

The International Organisation for Migration repatriated 160 Ethiopian migrants who had been stranded in Libya without travel documents.

The Scottish authorities charged with supervising the Lockerbie bomber said they had contacted him in Tripoli yesterday, following concerns about his whereabouts.

Guinea's former presidential guard chief said yesterday that he shot the country's military strongman earlier this month because the junta leader wanted him to take the blame for a massacre by troops of pro-democracy demonstrators in September.

South Africa lost 79,000 jobs in the third quarter, even as the economy pulled out of recession, worsening the country's chronic unemployment problem, the government said yesterday.

A France-Africa summit will be held in France instead of Egypt after Paris made clear it did not want indicted war criminal, Sudanese President  Omar al-Bashir to attend, a minister said yesterday.