Gunmen shot dead Jaafar Adam, a Muslim cleric in his mosque and fired on the congregation, killing two more people, in the northern Nigerian city of Kano Friday, witnesses said.

Five European countries and the European Commission signed an accord on Friday under which they will give 5.2 million dollars for administrative reforms within the Palestinian presidency.

Prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), has deplored two suicide bomb attacks in the Algerian capital that left over 200 casualties.

Russia is to open a criminal investigation into a call by exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky for the overthrow of President Vladimir Putin, the chief prosecutor said on Friday.

Authorities said they have halted the work of all foreign adoption agencies in Russia for several months, virtually shutting down the placement of children from one of the most important countries for U.S. families seeking to adopt.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French presidential candidate, and the office of Jacques Chirac, the French president, have denied a report alleging that they struck a deal to protect Chirac from prosecution once his judicial immunity runs out in May.