Nairobi  - Some 40 people are missing and one person is dead two days after a blaze ripped through a supermarket in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The fire broke out on Wednesday and quickly engulfed the downtown branch of Nakumatt, a popular supermarket chain.

Nakumatt on Wednesday evening issue a statement saying all of its staff and customers were safe, but the claim now seems to have been premature.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Somali insurgents have installed strict Islamic law in Baidoa, the seat of the Somali government, after taking control of the town.

Main insurgent group al-Shabaab took over the town on Monday only hours after the pullout of Ethiopian troops who had been propping up the central government for two years.

Baidoa was one of the last remaining strongholds of the government, which now only controls parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Somali members of parliament on Monday voted to double the number of seats in parliament from 275 to include moderate Islamists and civil society.

The Islamist Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) will have 200 seats, while 75 members of civil society will take up the rest of the new seats.

The MPs, meeting in neighbouring Djibouti due to insecurity in Somalia, are also due to vote on whether to delay presidential elections due for the end of January.

Nairobi/Abuja - A mob has has raided the home of a film director jailed for defying Islamic censors in northern Nigeria, local media reported Monday.

Hamisu Lamido, known as Iyan Tama, is serving a 15-month sentence for releasing a film without the approval of the Kano State Censor's Board.

A mob of over 30 men late last week broke into his home and threatened his wife and children, a family friend told Leadership Nigeria.

Nobody was injured and nothing was stolen in the attack.

Lamido was jailed in December, but his lawyers are appealing the sentence.

Nairobi - Kenyan newspapers on Wednesday went Obama-crazy as they hailed the beginning of the reign of the United States' first black president, whose roots lie in Kenya.

Images of President Obama were plastered all over the Daily Nation and The Standard, Kenya's two leading newspapers.

While there was much praise for the man whose father grew up in the western Kenyan village of Kogelo, the newspapers also sounded a note of caution.