ROME, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Monday confirmed the release of 19 European tourists and Egyptians, including five Italians, kidnapped in Egypt 10 days ago, Sky Italia reported.

'Our compatriots are free, and they are with Egyptian forces,' Frattini said, according to the Sky reporter accompanying him on a visit to Belgrade.

CAIRO, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - All 19 European tourists and their Egyptian gudies who were kidnapped by bandits in a remote desert region 10 days have been freed and are in good health, Egyptian state television said on Monday.

'The hostages have been freed, and are in good health. They are being brought to Cairo airport,' the television quoted an official as saying.

BELGRADE, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told AFP on Monday that 19 European tourists and Egyptians, including five Italians, kidnapped in Egypt 10 days ago were 'in a good shape.'

'They are in a good shape, they are on their way to Cairo, and then from Cairo to Italy,' Frattini told AFP at the end of his visit to Belgrade.

NEW YORK, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - A group of 19 foreign tourists and Egyptians kidnapped at gunpoint by bandits while on a desert safari in a remote corner of southwestern Egypt have been freed, Egypt's foreign minister said here Monday.

NEW YORK, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - A group of 19 foreign tourists and Egyptians kidnapped at gunpoint by bandits while on a desert safari in a remote corner of southwestern Egypt have been freed, Egypt's foreign minister said here Monday.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Sept 16, 2008 (AFP) - Two South African hostages seized last week by pirates along with 25 other people aboard a vessel in Nigeria's southern oil-producing region were freed Tuesday, the military said.

Government army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa told AFP the pair was released around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) 'without payment of ransom'.

SAN SEBASTIAN, August 30, 2008 (AFP) - The ex-leader of the banned political wing of armed Basque separatist group ETA left jail Saturday after serving a sentence for glorifying terrorism and called for negotiations with the government.

SAN SEBASTIAN, August 30, 2008 (AFP) - Arnaldo Otegi, the former leader of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, was released from jail Saturday after spending just over a year behind bars.

'Otegi got out at 7:25 am (0525 GMT) and there are lots of people outside', a prison officer confirmed to AFP by telephone.

TRIPOLI, August 27, 2008 (AFP) - The two hijackers of a Sudanese airliner freed all the passengers at a remote airbase in the Libyan desert on Wednesday but continued to hold seven crew members, a Libyan official said.

'All of the passengers have left the plane,' the official told AFP from Kufra oasis where the aircraft was forced to land on Tuesday evening.

KABUL, August 26, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan's interior ministry said a Japanese national had been freed 10 hours after he was kidnapped Tuesday but his release was not confirmed by the aid worker's employer.

Kazuya Ito, 31, was snatched at about 6:30 am as he was going to inspect a canal building project in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

PARIS, June 9, 2008 (AFP) - Iliad, the parent group of French Internet service provider Free said on Monday that it was in exclusive talks with Telecommunication Italia to buy its Internet business Alice.

Iliad said it was prepared to pay up to 800 million euros (1.26 billion dollars), to become the second-biggest provider in France after Orange, overtaking Neuf Cegetel.

HARARE, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was released from detention late Wednesday and no charges were brought against him after extensive questioning by police, he and a party lawyer told AFP.

'It is nothing but the usual harassment which is totally unnecessary,' Tsvangirai said. 'We have seen worse things than this.'

KABUL, May 31, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan has freed a man held in US-run prisons for six years who was a top lieutenant to a militant commander.

Ghairat Baheer, a close aide to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar -- a militant leader wanted by Washington for his links to an ongoing insurgency -- told a press conference 'my time in jail was bitter and painful.'

SYDNEY, March 28, 2008 (AFP) - Australia's Eamon Sullivan smashed the men's 50-metre freestyle world record for the second time in two days at the Australian Olympic trials on Friday.

ISLAMABAD, March 24, 2008 (AFP) - Pakistan's deposed chief justice made his first public appearance in four months Monday after the country's newly-elected premier ordered judges detained by President Pervez Musharraf to be freed.

BOGOTA, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - Colombian rebels on Wednesday released four former lawmakers they were holding hostage, handing them over to Red Cross representatives and Venezuelan government officials, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

LAGOS, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - A Nigerian man kidnapped by gunmen Sunday in the country's oil capital Port Harcourt was freed Wednesday, a security source said.

He gave no details of the man's release but said that no ransom was paid.

BASRA, Iraq, Feb 13, 2008 (AFP) - An Iraqi translator kidnapped with a British journalist at the weekend in the southern city of Basra was freed on Wednesday, a member of a powerful Shiite militia said.

'Negotiations are continuing for the release of the British journalist,' Harith al-Edhari, a director of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's office in Basra, told AFP.

NEW DELHI, Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) - Organisers of the biggest golf tournament ever held in India have decided to throw open the doors for free in a bid to popularise the game in the cricket-mad country.

LUANDA, Jan 25, 2008 (AFP) - Angolan journalist Armando Chikoca, who was released from prison on Friday after staying in jail for more than 30 days, vowed that he would never be silenced by his detention.

LAGOS, Dec 20, 2007 (AFP) - Gunmen in oil-rich southern Nigeria have released the 80-year-old father of the deputy governor of southern Bayelsa state, after keeping him hostage for ten days, a state government spokesman said Thursday.

'He was released by men of the Joint Task Force,' Ebimo Amungo said, referring to the force responsible for policing the Niger Delta.

ROME, Nov 20, 2007 (AFP) - An Italian judge on Tuesday ordered the release of a Congolese man held for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a British exchange student in Perugia, his lawyer said Tuesday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 4, 2007 (AFP) - Pro-Taliban militants Sunday released over 200 Pakistani soldiers more than two months after they were abducted in a restive tribal region near the Afghan border, the military said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 4, 2007 (AFP) - Pro-Taliban militants Sunday released over 200 Pakistani soldiers more than two months after they were abducted in a restive tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.

'Yes, the soldiers have been released,' Hassan Zada, chief of the administration in the troubled South Waziristan region, told AFP.

MANILA, Oct 26, 2007 (AFP) - Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada emerged from more than six years of detention a free man on Friday, a day after he was pardoned by President Gloria Arroyo.

Estrada was driven through the gates of his rural villa in Tanay, east of Manila, at 5:40 pm local time (0940 GMT) after a day of legal wrangling over assets.

LAGOS, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Three foreign and four Nigerian oil workers seized off the coast of southern Nigeria at the weekend were released Monday, a state government spokesman said.

'They were released to state government this afternoon and the government handed them over to Shell officials,' Edimo Amungo, press secretary to the governor of Bayelsa state told AFP, without saying how the men's release was obtained.

The foreign workers are a Briton, a Croat and a Russian.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A 62-year-old German engineer and four Afghans kidnapped 12 weeks ago by Taliban-linked militants were freed Wednesday in exchange for five Taliban prisoners, an Afghan official said.

Rudolf Blechschmidt and four others were swapped with the rebels in the offices of the Afghan intelligence services in Wardak province, 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Kabul, a district governor said.

The engineer, who is said to have heart problems, told the German Spiegel Online website he was fine.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A 62-year-old German engineer and four Afghans kidnapped 13 weeks ago by Taliban-linked militants were freed Wednesday in exchange for five Taliban prisoners, an Afghan official said.

Rudolf Blechschmidt and four others were swapped with the rebels in the offices of the Afghan intelligence services in the Wardak province capital Maidan Shah, 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Kabul, a district governor said.

The engineer, who is said to have heart problems, told the German Spiegel Online website he was fine.

BERLIN, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier thanked Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government Wednesday for helping to secure the release of a German engineer held hostage for three months in Afghanistan.

Steinmeier said 62-year-old Rudolf Blechschmidt was in the hands of the Afghan authorities after being handed over and the German embassy had spoken to him by telephone.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A German engineer and four Afghans kidnapped in mid-July were freed Wednesday in exchange for five Taliban prisoners, a district governor and a Taliban commander told AFP.

'The German engineer along with four Afghan hostages were freed in exchange for five Taliban prisoners,' said Mohammad Naeem, governor of Jaghato district in Wardak province. 'The German engineer is in good health.'

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YANGON, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - Myanmar's junta on Thursday released a local UN staff member, two of her relatives and her driver, one day after they were detained in raids following mass protests, the UN's country chief said.

'Our staff member and members of her family were released this afternoon,' UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie told AFP after the four were freed in Yangon, the scene of last week's huge pro-democracy demonstrations.

KABUL, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban Saturday released four Red Cross workers, including two foreign nationals, captured near the capital four days ago, officials said.

The four -- one from Myanmar, one from Macedonia and two Afghans -- were seized in the province of Wardak on Wednesday while returning from a mission to release a German engineer and five Afghans captured by Taliban mid-July.

KABUL, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Taliban rebels have freed four Red Cross workers captured four days ago, two of them foreign nationals, a provincial government spokesman told AFP.

'I can confirm that they have been freed. They were handed to an Afghan ICRC worker,' said Abdul Udood Pashtunzar, a spokesman for the Wardak provincial government where the men were released.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP earlier that the men were freed after they had been 'mistakenly' kidnapped on Wednesday in Wardak.

KABUL, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Taliban rebels have freed four International Committee of the Red Cross workers, two of them foreign nationals, captured four days ago, a provincial government spokesman told AFP.

'I can confirm that they have been freed. They were handed to an Afghan ICRC worker,' said Abdul Udood Pashtunzar, a spokesman for Wardak provincial government where the men were released.

HERAT, Afghanistan, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - NATO forces freed two kidnapped Italian soldiers in a military operation in western Afghanistan in which both men were wounded, Italian and Afghan officials said Monday.

The two men, soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, had gone missing in the western province of Herat on Saturday with their Afghan interpreter and driver.

ROME, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - NATO forces freed two Italian soldiers kidnapped in western Afghanistan during a military operation but both men were wounded, the defence ministry told ANSA news agency on Monday.

One of the two Italians was in serious condition, the ministry was quoted as saying. Both men were being treated in a NATO hospital.

The two soldiers had been travelling in a volatile part of western Herat province with an Afghan interpreter and an Afghan driver when they went missing on Saturday, Afghan police said.

KABUL, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - A pregnant German aid worker rescued from her kidnappers in a dramatic police swoop has been flown out of Afghanistan, her boss said Tuesday, insisting she had been well treated by her captors.

Christina Meier was flown with her husband 'to a safe location outside Afghanistan,' said Joop Teeuwen, the country director for the Christian aid organisation ORA-International.

Teeuwen said Meier had been well treated and medical checks after her release confirmed she was in 'perfect health' after her 36-hour ordeal.

KABUL, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - A female German aid worker abducted at gunpoint two days ago in Kabul was rescued by police early Monday, an officer involved in the operation and an official said.

The woman had been rescued and six kidnappers arrested, police colonel Ghulam Rasoul, who was part of the operation, told AFP.

'Yes, we successfully rescued her,' the colonel said, adding the woman was located in a house in southwest Kabul not far from the area where she had been abducted in broad daylight on Saturday.