An Argentine judge has reopened old wounds from Spain's Franco dictatorship by ordering some of his ex-ministers to face justice for alleged killings.

Groups campaigning for justice for people tortured and killed under Francisco Franco hailed the "historic" move to demand the extradition of 20 Spanish officials including several ex-ministers.

Violent protests broke out on Saturday in two French cities against alleged police brutality, leaving at least six injured.

Officers fired rubber bullets as demonstrators hurled bottles of acid in the western city of Nantes.

Campaigners demanding a vote on independence for the Catalonia region from Spain said Saturday they had gained the backing of two Nobel Peace Prize winners including Desmond Tutu.

The South African archbishop and the Argentine rights activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, both Nobel peace laureates, signed a petition calling for Catalans to be allowed "to vote on their political future", campaigners said.

Seven police officers were killed and 17 others were missing following an attack blamed on local tribesmen in Kenya's remote north, police sources said Saturday.

The officers, missing since Friday, are believed to have been ambushed during a security operation in the impoverished, arid region of Lake Turkana, the scene of regular raids and score-settlings between rival communities.

A strong earthquake jolted the southeastern Pacific on Saturday, about 544 kilometers (338 miles) south-southeast of Chile's Easter Island, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The 6.0-magnitude quake, which hit at 3:59 am local time (10:59 GMT), registered at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

German police arrested one of the most wanted fugitive members of the Basque separatist group ETA, Tomas Elorriaga Kunze, who is wanted for forgery and bomb-making, the Spanish government said.

Elorriaga Kunze, 51 -- known by the alias Teo -- had been on the run for 15 years after a string of convictions in France for belonging to an armed group, the interior ministry said in a statement late on Friday.

Six Ukrainian soldiers have been killed by pro-Russian rebels in the last 24 hours, a government official said Saturday.

"Our losses as a result of fighting were six servicemen killed and 10 wounded," Volodymyr Polyovy, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, said.

Nine Afghan security forces personnel were killed in a suicide attack Saturday south of the capital Kabul, provincial officials said.

"A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle against Afghan police forces in the Azra district of Logar province," Din Mohammad Darwesh, spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP. "Six police officers and three soldiers were killed."

A massive nationwide power blackout hit Bangladesh on Saturday after a transmission line failed, leaving homes, businesses and shops in the densely-populated country without electricity.

Power was restored in some parts of the capital Dhaka after several hours, and authorities said they hoped to have electricity back on across the nation of 155 million by Saturday evening.

At least one person was killed and two others wounded on Saturday in a car bombing in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, police said.

"One person... was killed and two others wounded this morning after a bomb attached to the car was remotely detonated," said Mohamed Dahir, a police commander in the Hodon district where the explosion happened.