World Highlights

¤ Islamist militia, days after winning control of Mogadishu, advanced towards the last stronghold of secular warlords in Jowhar further north. Residents said the militia, who won control of the Somali capital on Monday after driving out a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords, advanced overnight closer to the warlord stronghold of Jowhar, 90 kilometres to the north.

¤ Sri Lankan government delegates prepared to return from talks in Oslo without meeting Tamil Tiger rebels as mediator Norway asked if the two sides stood by their ceasefire and a senior rebel warned of war. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blindsided Norwegian diplomats on Thursday by refusing to meet a Sri Lankan government delegation for talks about the safety and operation of the 57-person Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

¤ A rare high-level joint UN and African Union team arrived in Sudan hoping to persuade Khartoum to accept UN peacekeeping troops in Darfur and plan for their deployment. Political team members were due to hold talks with the government today while military, telecommunications and other technical experts would head to Darfur, in western Sudan, to plan for a possible deployment of UN troops.

¤ African leaders and international donors launched an ambitious attempt to foster a "Green Revolution" in farming, based on increased fertiliser use, to reduce hunger in the poorest continent.

A third of sub-Saharan Africans face recurrent famine and under-nutrition and experts say this is partly due to a worsening problem of soil depletion, which occurs when farmland loses more nutrients than are being replaced.