Nairobi - At least 24 people have been killed in clashes between members of the public and the banned Mungiki sect in Central Kenya, police said Tuesday.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told the German Press Agency dpa that fighting broke out on Monday evening in and around the town of Karatina, around 100 kilometres north of the capital Nairobi.

The police arrested 34 people on Tuesday night then discovered the bodies early Tuesday morning, Kiraithe said.

It was not clear how many of the dead were members of the banned sect and how many were members of the public.

Nairobi - Somali pirates have released a Togo-flagged ship originally routed to carry food aid to the Horn of Africa nation, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday.

A Nairobi-based WFP spokesman, citing the MV Sea Horse's owners, said that the ship, which was taken on April 14, was released on Friday.

There was no official information on whether a ransom was paid, although some reports suggested that as much as 100,000 dollars may have changed hands.

Washington/Nairobi  - Richard Phillips, the American captain dramatically rescued from pirates on Sunday, arrived in the Kenyan port of Mombasa Thursday aboard a US Navy destroyer escorting a second US freighter attacked by pirates.

Phillips is captain of the Maersk Alabama, whose crew repelled an attempted pirate hijacking. The captain was held hostage for five days on a lifeboat.

He was freed Sunday when five US Navy snipers killed the three pirates holding him.

Nairobi  - Kenya's coalition government, formed to bring an end to the post-election violence that ripped the county apart in early 2008, was Thursday locked in talks aimed at preventing an increasingly fragile alliance falling apart.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement, on Wednesday said members of his party would boycott cabinet meetings.

The ODM feels is is being sidelined by President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity. Odinga's party walked out of earlier talks with the PNU.

Nairobi  - Hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo are still displaced and suffering abuse and hunger as a result of an operation targeting Hutu militia, the British arm of Oxfam said Tuesday.

Rwandan and Congolese troops joined forces in January to target the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) - an armed group created by Hutu militia who took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Nairobi - Kenya's Justice Minister Martha Karua resigned on Monday, citing frustrations over the pace of reforms.

Karua was angry that President Mwai Kibaki appointed seven judges without informing her.

She said her position was now untenable and that she was being prevented from reforming the judicial system.

The resignation comes as Kenya's grand coalition - which was formed last March to end violence brought about by dispute election - looks on the verge of falling apart.