JERUSALEM, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - An Israeli military court has jailed five soldiers for trafficking arms and drugs across the Egyptian border which they had been assigned to patrol, military sources said on Sunday.

The five Bedouin trackers, all of them career soldiers, received prison terms of between one and seven years, the sources said.

They had been detained seven months ago following a police investigation.

NAIROBI, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Kenyan police on Thursday killed four people, including two Ugandans, who were smuggling coffee in the country's western region, a local administrator said.

Four other suspects were arrested and two G3 rifles and a pistol were recovered during the operation in Mount Elgon, which borders Uganda, said area district commissioner Mohammed Biriki.

The gang, which included a Kenyan paramilitary officer, was smuggling coffee from a local factory when they were killed, Biriki told state-run Kenya News Agency.

SOFIA, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria's customs agency announced Monday its largest ever bust of smuggled money, saying it had seized more than one million US dollars at a border checkpoint with neighbouring Turkey.

The record sum of money (750,000 euros), in 100-dollar banknotes, was in 37 packages and stuffed in special compartments in a car travelling through the southeastern Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint to Turkey, a statement said. The bust was made on Friday.

CAIRO, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - A sudden influx of hundreds of baby crocodiles seized while being smuggled out of Cairo airport has left a zoo in the Egyptian capital struggling to deal with the tiny but rapidly growing reptiles.

'We've never seen anything like this before,' says Ragy Toma, who heads the government department in charge of dealing with seized contraband animals and was standing in front of the 265 infant crocs now housed at Giza zoo in Cairo.

CAIRO, Aug 12, 2007 (AFP) - Egyptian customs officials foiled an attempt to smuggle a veritable menagerie of live animals out of the country, with more than 250 baby crocodiles among the cargo along with snakes and chameleons, airport sources said on Sunday.

A young Saudi man was arrested after X-ray scans revealed the strange presence in his luggage, although he was later allowed to leave.

'This is the largest smuggling attempt of Nile crocodiles in the whole of aviation history,' the state news agency Mena cited airport vet Yusef Mamduh as saying.

SEOUL, Aug 5, 2007 (AFP) - North Korea has publicly executed a trade official for chopping down and smuggling cherished 'slogan trees' on which founding leader Kim Il-Sung reputedly carved anti-Japanese messages, a report said Sunday.

Senior local timber trader Oh Mun-Hyok was shot dead and four accomplices sentenced to life imprisonment on July 23, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources.

Local government and trade officials were forced to watch Oh's public execution at Yonsa in the northern province of North Hamkyong, it said.