Britain said Thursday its relationship with Ethiopia was being put at risk by the country's year-long detention of opposition leader Andargachew Tsege, an Ethiopian-British dual national.

Addis Ababa said last week that Tsege, 60, who is on death row, would not be pardoned but might escape execution, after reports he was ailing in solitary confinement.

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed five people and injured four others in an attack in southeast Niger Tuesday night, state radio announced Thursday.

Three of the victims in the attack on a village near the town of Bosso, on the border with Nigeria, were shot dead while the two others were burned to death, the radio reported, blaming Nigeria-based Boko Haram jihadists.

Al-Qaida has confirmed that a U.S. drone strike earlier this year killed its English-language spokesman, a California native known as Azzam the American, SITE Intelligence Group reported Thursday.

In a special issue of Al-Qaida English-language magazine Resurgence, editor Hassaan Yusuf wrote that Azzam, whose real name was Adam Gadahn, was killed in a strike thought to have taken place in January on an Al-Qaida compound in Pakistan.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame launched a furious attack on Western countries on Thursday after the arrest in Britain of the country's intelligence chief.

"Absolute arrogance and contempt is the only basis for this arrest," Kagame said in a speech to parliament.

Foreign fighters with Somalia's Shebab insurgents pose a risk to Europe if troops fail to stop them, Kenya's deputy president warned Thursday, days after the first British jihadi was killed in Kenya.

"Foreign fighters from far afield, some from Europe, are in the field here in the Horn of Africa," Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said, speaking at conference in Nairobi on countering violent extremism.

Myanmar's parliament Thursday dealt a body blow to Aung San Suu Kyi's hopes of amending a junta-era constitution that bars her from the presidency before landmark elections, voting down a bill to end the military's effective veto on charter change.

The vote, held after three days of energetic debate between uniformed soldiers and elected MPs, saw parliament shoot down a draft amendment that would have loosened the military's political stranglehold.

The Philippines said Thursday it wants to acquire defense equipment from Japan, as the two allies strengthen defense ties in the face of China's increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Manila was particularly keen on the P-3C Orion surveillance plane flown by Japanese pilots during recent joint exercises over disputed waters also claimed by Beijing, a defense ministry spokesman said.

Flash flooding triggered by torrential rains has killed 41 people in India's western Gujarat state, as the annual monsoon season hits the country, a disaster management official said Thursday.

Authorities have evacuated more than 10,000 residents mainly from coastal areas of Gujarat following heavy rains in the last 24 hours, the state government said in a statement.

Burundian students broke into the U.S. embassy to escape police Thursday as one of the country's vice presidents announced he had fled to Belgium, escalating a political crisis in the central African nation days before key elections.

Ignoring armed U.S. Marines watching from the roof of the US mission, around 200 students climbed under the gate and over the wall before sitting inside the compound with their hands raised.

South Africa said Thursday it may withdraw from the International Criminal Court after an outcry over the government's refusal to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges.

Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC on charges genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, left South Africa last week after attending an African Union summit despite a court in Pretoria barring his departure while it ruled whether he could be arrested.