A Turkish court on Friday released a former informant accused of instigating the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, local media reported.

The release of Erhan Tuncel was made possible by a change in the country's anti-terrorism laws that reduced the maximum pre-trial detention period from 10 years to five years, Hurriyet newspaper said.

South Africa's under-fire police faced a fresh scandal Friday after footage emerged of uniformed officers punching and kicking a half-naked and unarmed man on a Cape Town street.

The footage, filmed by a witness and posted on Facebook and YouTube, showed two officers manhandling the suspect, with the help of two uniformed private security guards.

Pro-Russian militants smashed through the gates of a Ukrainian air force base in Crimea on Friday in the latest signs of boiling tensions on the rugged peninsula, Ukraine's defense ministry said.

The militants entered the base and were in negotiations with the commander of the base, while soldiers guarding it have locked themselves in their barracks, a ministry spokesperson told Agence France Presse.

The Mauritanian government has ordered the closure of several Islamic charities for "overstepping their mandate", a security official said on Friday, including an organization with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

No official explanation has been given for the crackdown but ministers made the decision after holding a cabinet meeting on Thursday to discuss security issues and "the consequences of past excesses on the stability of the country", the official told Agence France Presse.

About 300 fundamentalists in Sudan branded France a "criminal" and called for jihad during a Friday rally in support of Muslims in the Central African Republic, an Agence France Presse reporter saw.

"France is the chief criminal in Central Africa," said one sign carried by the protesters, many of them bearded, outside the main mosque in central Khartoum.

Nigeria's main opposition party has unveiled what it hopes will be a blueprint for winning power when voters in Africa's most populous nation go to the polls to elect a new president and parliament.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), buoyed by a wave of defections from President Goodluck Jonathan's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), called the manifesto a "Road Map to a New Nigeria".

An Indian naval officer was killed and "some" dock workers were injured Friday in a gas leak aboard a yet-to-be commissioned naval ship, the defense ministry said.

The accident was the 11th involving a naval vessel in the past 11 months, the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party said.

Pakistan's defense minister said Friday the government was committed to bringing peace through dialogue with the Taliban but warned a military operation could be launched if talks failed.

The government announced on Thursday it was setting up a new committee to hold direct talks with the Taliban in a bid to accelerate the peace process.

The World Food Program said Friday it was planning to airlift and airdrop urgently needed food aid to thousands of refugees and others affected by the conflict in South Sudan.

The UN agency said the conflict in the world's newest nation had severely complicated supplying refugee camps in the northeastern Maban County with food, warning that cereal stocks there were exhausted.

Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of attempting to pervert the course of justice on the basis of phone taps ordered by judges investigating his links with Moammar Gadhafi, it emerged on Friday.

The revelation was the latest dramatic development in the labyrinthine web of corruption cases threatening to ensnare the former French president and destroy his chances of a political comeback.