Authorities in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland arrested four French nationals who crossed into the territory from neighboring Djibouti, a government official said.

The four, among them women, were arrested on Thursday while driving in Bariisle village near the border and later handed back to Djibouti authorities.

Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika died early Friday, hours after the 78-year-old suffered a heart attack, a hospital source said of the southern African nation's leader for the past eight years.

"He died... after two hours of resuscitation", shortly after midnight, the hospital source in the capital Lilongwe said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government has not yet made a formal announcement.

Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohammed Ali told Agence France Presse Friday that a suicide attack this week at Mogadishu's national theatre where he was giving an address was an attempt to assassinate him.

Four people, including Somalia's Olympic committee chief and the football federation president, were killed Wednesday when a female suicide bomber blew herself up at the newly reopened theatre.

President Asif Ali Zardari will on Sunday become the first Pakistani head of state since 2005 to visit arch-rival India when he makes a trip that includes lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A strong storm in Argentina's capital has blown down trees and destroyed roofs, killing at least 13 people in the region and leaving more than 20 injured.

Authorities said four people died in the capital of Buenos Aires as hail fell and heavy gusts of wind tore through the city Wednesday night. One person was killed when a wall collapsed, and three others died under a roof that fell, city official Maria Eugenia Vidal told the Argentine television channel Telefe.

A former CIA officer was indicted Thursday on charges of leaking secrets to journalists, including the name of a covert agent and the role of another CIA employee in classified operations.

John Kiriakou, who had previously revealed the CIA's use of waterboarding of al-Qaida suspects, was charged in January with leaking secrets. The indictment allows the case to proceed to trial without an evidentiary hearing.

Seven people were burnt to death in southern Afghanistan on Friday when a fuel tanker supplying a NATO base crashed and set their vehicle on fire, officials said.

Both the security chief of Panjwayi district in Kandahar and the provincial police chief said there was no insurgent activity at the time, but residents told Agence France Presse the tanker was attacked by Taliban using rocket-propelled grenades.

China has placed six men from the Uighur ethnic minority on a "terror" list, accusing them of involvement in terrorist training camps and of inciting attacks in the restive western Xinjiang region.

China's Ministry of Public Security said the men, whose names identify them as Uighurs, were members of the outlawed East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), blaming one for orchestrating violent attacks in the city of Kashgar last July.

Tuareg rebels of north Mali's National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) on Friday proclaimed the "independence of Azawad" in a statement on their website and through a spokesman on France 24 television.

"We solemnly proclaim the independence of Azawad as from today," said Mossa Ag Attaher, who added that the rebels would respect "the borders with other states."

Amnesty International warned Thursday that north Mali was on the brink of a "major humanitarian disaster" and said aid agencies must be allowed immediate access to avoid further civilian deaths.

The London-based rights organization said the three northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu have "experienced days of looting, abductions and chaos" since being overrun by Tuareg and Islamist rebels last week.