Nigeria

Nigeria's last prominent militant leader agreed to halt fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta and surrendered his weapons Sunday in return for an unconditional pardon. Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, whose gunmen were behind many attacks on the oil industry in the western Niger Delta, handed over rocket launchers, machine guns and explosives to Defense Minister Godwin Abbe at his camp in Oporoza in Delta state. "It is an act of patriotism that Tompolo and his group surrendered their arms," Abbe said at the ceremony.

Amid surging demand for oil, a severe bottleneck has developed in production of high-quality West African crude, alarming world leaders and demonstrating a new vulnerability in fragile oil markets. With production declining elsewhere, consumer nations had been looking hopefully toward Nigeria. But rebels who have waged an increasingly bold campaign in the oil-rich Niger Delta have slashed the country's output in their most recent attacks.

A Nigerian villager who is suing Chevron Corp. for human rights violations testified in federal court Thursday that he was shot four times by Nigerian troops at a Chevron oil platform even though he was unarmed. "I saw military men jump off a helicopter, and as they jumped off they were shooting," Larry Bowoto, 44, testified through an interpreter. "I was raising my hands [and shouting], 'We are community protesters. We are for peace. Don't shoot us.'

Seeking to hold Chevron Corp. accountable for its practices overseas, an attorney for 19 Nigerian villagers urged a federal jury Tuesday to find the oil company responsible for the killing and wounding of four Nigerians during a protest at an offshore oil platform.

Mobs burned homes, churches and mosques Saturday in a second day of riots, as the death toll rose to more than 300 in the worst sectarian violence in Africa's most populous nation in years. Sheik Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the city's main mosque, said more than 300 bodies were brought there Saturday and 183 more were outside the building, waiting for burial.

A federal jury Monday cleared Chevron Corp. of any responsibility in the shooting of Nigerian villagers by military forces during a protest at an offshore oil platform, concluding a closely watched case brought under a seldom-invoked 1789 law allowing foreigners to sue in the United States.

Gunmen stormed a compound housing expatriate pipeline workers in Nigeria's oil-rich southern region, kidnapping nine South Koreans and a Nigerian, officials said. Dozens of soldiers and security guards at the complex failed to foil the latest in a series of kidnappings in the area, said Ekiyor Wilson, a local government spokesman. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Gunmen demanding a ransom kidnapped an American engineer and a British engineer on their way to work in Nigeria's southern oil city of Port Harcourt, authorities said. The abduction brings to 29 the number of foreign workers held by armed groups in the remote swamps of the Niger Delta. Diplomats said the two men worked for local construction firm Pivot. A security source said the kidnappers demanded $11.7 million.

Bird flu has claimed its first human victim in Nigeria, a young woman who would have graduated from a university and married this year, officials and the victim's fiance said. The Jan. 17 death occurred in Lagos, a teeming city where chickens and other fowl are raised in close quarters with people. The woman's name was not released, and her fiance asked that he not be identified.

A human rights group said Wednesday that its study of one of Nigeria's oil-producing states found that officials squandered or stole public money, while some hospitals required patients to bring their own beds and many schools lacked basic supplies. New York-based Human Rights Watch made the allegations after studying government finances in the state of Rivers, one of six oil-producing states in Nigeria.