After a worrying setback when their Somali government allies deserted their posts, AU troops in Mogadishu managed to contain the situation.

Rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People forces led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda have taken over the centre at Mabenga.

Just a few hundred metres separate the army and rebels near Kibati in the DRC's volatile east, where hundreds cross the front line daily.

Marwan was in a hurry. Stuck in traffic in the mixed west Baghdad district of Al-Jihad, the Sunni Arab taxi driver took a short-cut down a side street inhabited by Shi'ites and disappeared. Two days later, the 32-year-old cabbie was found dead in a dusty alley nearby, with a bullet wound to his head. Both his knees had been broken and pierced with an electric drill.

It was business as usual as the AU's two-day summit stuck to its planned schedule, despite the problems in Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan and Côte d'Ivoire.

A high-level panel named by the African Union faces an uphill battle in agreeing a unified stand on Côte d'Ivoire's political crisis.

African leaders will try to bridge their divide over the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire as they meet for a summit this weekend.

After a worrying setback when their Somali government allies deserted their posts, AU troops in Mogadishu managed to contain the situation.