Gunmen in Sudan's Darfur seized 31 displaced people traveling to a conference, peacekeepers said on Monday, highlighting the insecurity of 1.4 million people uprooted by the region's decade-old conflict.

"A convoy of three commercial buses carrying 31 internally displaced persons and escorted by UNAMID peacekeepers was stopped by a large unidentified armed group in military uniforms and seven jeep-mounted guns," said Aicha Elbasri, spokeswoman for the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

Italian leftist leader Pier Luigi Bersani said Monday that the recession-hit country was in a "dramatic situation" and needed "a government which performs miracles".

The warning came as Bersani raced to try and build the necessary support to govern after February elections that left the country in political gridlock, amid pressure from the center-right.

Six people were killed and 11 were missing on Monday after they were buried in a landslide caused by heavy rain on Indonesia's Java island, a disaster official said.

Eighteen people had initially been buried beneath the landslide but six have since been rescued, national disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

The African Union suspended the Central African Republic on Monday after rebels seized power in a rapid weekend assault on the capital, sending President Francois Bozize fleeing and triggering international appeals for calm.

Rebel leader Michel Djotodia planned to declare himself president Monday after his Seleka coalition took control of Bangui in the wake of the collapse of a two-month-old peace deal with Bozize's regime.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Afghanistan on Monday on an unannounced visit, with relations badly frayed by Kabul's recent hostility to U.S.-led military efforts in the country.

Kerry is likely to face a testing meeting with President Hamid Karzai who has launched a series of verbal assaults on U.S. troops and their coalition partners.

China's new President Xi Jinping hailed Monday the strength of ties with African nations, in a keynote speech on his first trip as head of state to the continent.

Hailing resource-rich Africa as a "continent of hope and promise", Xi addressed leaders in Tanzania's economic capital as "my dear friends" and spoke of Beijing's "sincere friendship" with Africa.

Afghanistan on Monday took full control of Bagram military prison from the United States, healing one running sore in their testy relationship as U.S.-led forces wind down more than a decade of war.

President Hamid Karzai had made the fate of the detention center north of Kabul part of his ill-tempered push to regain sovereignty over key matters from the Americans, ahead of next year's pullout of foreign combat troops.

Somali gunmen killed a female radio journalist in Mogadishu, the latest in a string of reporters murdered in the war-ravaged capital, colleagues and witnesses said Monday.

Two men shot dead Rahmo Abdukadir, who worked for the private Radio Abduwaq station, late Sunday.

Two people died and two were seriously hurt after an asylum-seeker boat capsized off Australia Monday, but more than 90 were plucked to safety and taken ashore, officials said.

The boat was spotted by Australian customs 14 nautical miles northwest of the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.

French President Francois Hollande has called on all parties in the Central African Republic "to remain calm and hold talks on a national unity government", after rebels seized control of the capital Bangui, his office said on Sunday.

Hollande noted the departure of President Francois Bozize, called on all parties to form a government in accordance with a peace deal reached in January, and asked "the armed groups to respect the population".