Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a mandate today from the country's president to form a new government, two weeks after his ruling, Islamist-rooted Justice and Development (AK) party won a decisive victory in parliamentary polls.

Lebanese authorities say fighting has resumed between government troops and Islamists entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli. Smoke could be seen billowing Saturday in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, as soldiers shelled Fatah al-Islam positions.

An Italian official says Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf will allow members of the ousted Islamic Courts Union to take part in next month's reconciliation conference. But deputy foreign affairs minister Patrizia Sentinelli says the ICU members would have renounce violence and be chosen by their clans.

Tens of thousands of Turks protested Sunday against the country's Islamist-rooted government. The demonstrators chanted "Turkey is secular and will remain secular" as they gathered in Samsun.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed support for the country's secular laws, saying that Turkey is a secular state and will remain so.

Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gul in an interview with VOA denied opposition charges that his Justice and Development Party is seeking a greater role for Islam in the government. He was speaking just days after he withdrew his candidacy to become Turkey's new president because of a legal challenge mounted by his pro-secular opponents.

A longtime opposition leader of Turkey have been trying to defeat Islam's encroach into Turkish politics for more than a decade. Deniz Baykal, 68, is president of Turkey's oldest political party, the Republican People's Party. It was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who as Turkey's first president made secularism one of this Muslim nation's most sacred principles.

Many erroneous and ambiguous news reports have been written on the so called, "Mr. Integrity" Umaru Yar'Adua, the governor of Katsina state and presidential candidate of the ruling party (PDP) in Nigeria. But how many have been fooled by his sponsors?

Panic-stricken Nigerians are fleeing the Northern state of Kano as government forces try to crush a rebellion by the Islamic militants who killed the district police officer with his wife and 11 other policemen at a police post last Tuesday.