Oil-rich Angola is in line for a one-billion-dollar credit from a World Bank organ that aims to reduce poverty and create jobs, a bank official said Wednesday.

Senior World Bank economist Ricardo Gazel told AFP that Angola was applying to join the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which serves middle-income and credit-worthy poor countries.

BISSAU, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Angola is to extend a 10 million dollar grant to Guinea-Bissau and will supply the impoverished west African country oil at preferential rates, the government in Bissau said on Thursday.

The announcement came at the end of a three-day official visit to the world's fifth poorest nation by Angolan Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos.

The 10 million dollar grant will go towards national budget support.

BRUSSELS, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola moved closer to resolving a long-standing border dispute Thursday at talks with former colonial powers Belgium and Portugal, diplomats said.

'At first, there were differences over 11 villages. Then over three. Today only one remains, right on the border, which could pose a problem,' said Angolan ambassador Toko Serao.

ABUJA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Nigeria said Tuesday it has asked Angola to extradite the suspected leader of a Nigerian armed group, arrested last month for alleged arms dealing.

Henry Okah, better known under the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, is suspected of being the leader of a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

MEND is the most high-profile of the armed groups operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi told reporters that the government had asked for his extradition to Nigeria.

LISBON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Angola, the newest member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, would be satisfied with an oil production quota of 2.5 million barrels per day in 2008, a top official at national oil company Sonangol said on Tuesday.

'That does not pose a problem,' company vice president Fernando Roberto was quoted as saying by the Portuguese news agency Lusa when asked about an output limit of 2.5 million bpd.

LUANDA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Five children were killed and another seriously injured in an Angola central rural district following a blast when they tried to open a mortar shell left from the civil war, an official said on Tuesday.

The children were playing in Dando village, near Nharea in Bie Province when they discovered the 81mm shell. They tried to open it by hitting it with a hoe, which triggered the blast, local administrator Armando Ngaieta said, according to official Angop news agency.

LUANDA, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - A two-year bridge building project in Angola has reopened a vital road to a large area of the country's isolated eastern Moxico province, destroyed during a 27-year civil war, the UN said Wednesday.

The main road leading to Lumbula N'guimbo was heavily mined during the war, which ended in 2002, and every one of its bridges destroyed, when the United Nation World Food Programme (WFP) stepped in in 2005 to rebuild it.

UNITED NATIONS , Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Relations between France and oil-rich Angola, strained following an arms sale scandal, are on the mend, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said here Monday, after talks with his Angolan counterpart Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.

'I believe I can say that a page has been turned, that of sour relations between Angola and France,' said Sarkozy, who is here to attend the UN General Assembly session.

'President Dos Santos invited me to visit Angola early in 2008,' the French leader said.

HAVANA, Sept 23, 2007 (AFP) - Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos on Sunday wrapped up a four-day trip to Cuba after meeting ailing Fidel Castro and sealing a bilateral cooperation agreement with Havana, state television reported.

Cuba's interim President Raul Castro, who invited the Angoloan leader to visit the country after taking the reins of government last year from his brother Fidel, said the visit was marked by extensive 'dialogue and intense activity.'

'A magnificent visit,' a beaming Raul Castro said. 'Did you see the Rebel Youth daily newspaper today?'

LAGOS, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - The presumed head of the Nigerian armed group the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, who goes under the name of Jomo Gbomo, has been arrested in Angola, sources said Friday.

Nigerian security sources who asked not to be identified said Gbomo was arrested by the Angolan authorities whilst negotiating an arms deal.

The time of the arrest is not known but rumours of it were already in circulation one week ago.