Guinea

Attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades targeted the headquarters of Guinea-Bissau's armed forces, destroying part of the building, witnesses said. Army troops encircled the area and were searching for the unknown assailants. The impoverished former Portuguese colony in West Africa has a history of coups and civil conflict. Military officers ordered two private radio stations in the capital to cease broadcasting, and state television also appeared to have stopped.

Scientists have found further evidence that prehistoric humans populated Australia and New Guinea roughly 25,000 years before they migrated to the neighboring islands of Melanesia. Call it a gut feeling. The new evidence comes from the DNA of Helicobacter pylori, a parasite that makes its home in the human gastrointestinal tract. People who live in developing countries without access to modern medicines are most likely to harbor the bacterium, which can cause ulcers and stomach cancer.

Alarmed by the rise in Latin American drug traffic in West Africa, nations including Colombia, Brazil and the United States are establishing or increasing their police presence in that unstable region. Racked by internal strife that has left them poor, crime-ridden and institutionally weak, several West African nations in recent years have become key transit hubs for Colombian, Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine headed to Europe. In an interview last week, Colombian National Police commander Gen.

The African Union suspended Guinea from the bloc and threatened further sanctions unless young soldiers who seized power last week restore constitutional rule. That seemed unlikely in the immediate future, however, as many in Guinea appeared to welcome the bloodless coup that followed the Dec. 22 death of longtime dictator Lansana Conte.

The leader of Guinea's coup declared a zero-tolerance policy on corruption, warning that anyone who embezzles state funds will be executed. "For the person who embezzles money, there won't be a trial. They'll be killed," Capt. Moussa Camara said as the crowd went wild. "I was born in a hut. I walked to school. . . . Money means nothing to me." Guinea is the world's largest producer of bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and also produces diamonds and gold. Yet its mineral wealth has enriched only the country's longtime ruling clique.

Tens of thousands of loyalists Friday mourned the death of the dictator who ruled Guinea for nearly a quarter of a century, lining the roads to the palace grounds where he was interred. Lansana Conte, who took power in 1984, was the only leader many Guineans had ever known. Though he was widely seen as corrupt and authoritarian, many regarded stability under him as preferable to the bloody civil wars elsewhere in West Africa.

President Lansana Conte, who ruled the African nation of Guinea with an iron hand since seizing power in a 1984 coup, has died after a lengthy illness, the National Assembly president said today. Aboubacar Sompare, flanked by the country's prime minister and the head of the army, said on state-run television that Conte died Monday evening. He was believed to be in his 70s. According to the constitution, the head of the National Assembly becomes president if the head of state dies.

President Joao Bernardo Vieira survived an apparent coup attempt Sunday in this West African nation after guards at his heavily fortified home fought off mutinous soldiers in a three-hour gun battle, Interior Minister Cipriano Cassama said. The attack began with heavy artillery fire on the home. Though Vieira and his wife were not hurt, at least one guard died and several others were injured, Cassama said.

The bodies of 13 people were found aboard a packed migrant boat near one of Spain's Canary Islands, the Interior Ministry said. Coastal guards spotted the boat with 46 survivors, and it was escorted to Puerto de Arguineguin on the south of Gran Canaria Island, the ministry said. It said the boat had sailed from Guinea. Every year thousands of Africans looking for a better life in Europe attempt treacherous journeys in overcrowded boats.

More than 30 prisoners escaped from a jail in Nzerekore by using spoons to scoop a hole in the baked earth wall of their prison building, which had been softened by rain, prison authorities in the African nation said. "They used their sheets and shirts to make a rope to climb down the right wall of the jail," an official said.