• Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a Peruvian photographer working for Agence France-Presse in the Gaza Strip, the French news agency and Palestinian security sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of Jaime Razuri.

• Defeated Somali Islamists fled their last stronghold and headed towards the Kenyan border in what looked like the end of nearly two weeks of war with the Ethiopian-backed government. Several thousand Islamist troops, who abandoned the capital to take a stand 300 km to the south near the port of Kismayu, melted away again overnight after trading artillery fire with advancing Ethiopian and government troops.

• At least 200 people survived the sinking of an Indonesian ferry, the health ministry said, even as body bags were being prepared for victims and more than 400 remained unaccounted for. Although confirmed deaths were in single digits, officials said corpses from the disaster overnight on Friday were scattered for miles on beaches along Java's coastline, and local media have reported at least 60 bodies found.

• Slovenia adopted Europe's single currency, crowning its 15-year transition from a republic in socialist Yugoslavia to the continent's most advanced post-communist economy. Tiny but prosperous Slovenia, which lies just south of Austria, became the euro zone's 13th member, in its first expansion since the currency was introduced in 2002.