Nigeria has set its sights on making multibillion-dollar oil deals with China amid peace moves with militants. Lawmakers in the west African country -- one of the world's top producers of oil -- are crafting new money-making changes for its state oil corporation, as officials negotiate multibillion-dollar oil deals with China. At the same time, the government is brokering peace with bandits whose attacks have cost the oil industry millions. Nigeria's minister for state of petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia, talked this ...

Lawmakers in the west African country -- one of the world's top producers of oil -- are crafting new money-making changes for its state oil corporation, as officials negotiate multibillion-dollar oil deals with China. At the same time, the government is brokering peace with bandits whose attacks have cost the oil industry millions. Nigeria's minister for state of petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia, talked this month about the developments. The changes aimed at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation will address allegations ...

Police in northern Nigeria on Saturday detained almost 4,000 members of an Islamic community, claiming the group posed a potential violent threat, the police commissioner in the Nigerian state of Niger told CNN.

About 780 people killed in clashes with Islamic militants in the northeast Nigerian area of Maiduguri have been buried in mass graves, an aid official said Monday. The Red Cross urged an environmental agency to bury them as soon as possible because of the dangers of so many bodies being exposed to northern Nigeria's heat, said Mohammed Zannah Barma, secretary of the Red Cross in Borno state. About 3,600 people were displaced in the attacks, Barma said, adding that almost ...

Some 700 people have been killed in clashes with Islamic militants in Nigeria, a military commander told CNN. The fighting in the northeast Nigerian town of Maiduguri began with attacks by the Muslim militants on police and government targets, starting a week ago. Col. Ben Ahonotu, commander of the operation to combat Islamic militants, gave the new total. Previous reports said at least 400 rebels, troops and civilians had died in the region, including Borno, Yobe, Kano and Katsina states. ...

It's easy enough to buy a smoke at Isa Yakubu's grocery store on a busy street in Lagos, Nigeria. Never mind if you don't have much money. Most local merchants are happy to break open a pack and sell cigarettes one at a time — single sticks, as they're known — for about 10 Nigerian naira, or 7 cents. "St. Moritz is the most popular brand," says Yakubu. "But [people] also like Rothmans and Benson & Hedges." Single sticks ...

The imprisoned leader of the Nigerian militant group MEND has accepted an unconditional amnesty offer from the government, his lawyer said Friday. All 228 people aboard the plane were killed in the June 1 crash. The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, commonly known as black boxes, stop giving out acoustic broadcasts after 30 days. But investigators decided to continue listening for the "pings" for 10 days after that. Now, the two U.S. naval vessels and a French ...

Oil company Royal Dutch Shell will pay $15.5 million to settle a lawsuit against its Nigerian subsidiary by the family of executed Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other dissidents, the plaintiffs announced Monday. The lawsuit accuses Shell of complicity in the 1995 hanging of Saro-Wiwa and the killings or persecution of other environmental activists by the military government that ruled the country at the time. Roughly half of the settlement will go into a trust fund to help the ...

Christian Eshiett was a rambunctious pre-teen who spent a lot of time cavorting with his friends in southern Nigeria. He would skip school and run away from home for days, frustrating his grandfather, who oversaw the boy's care. "I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear," said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett, 76. "One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... ...

A Nigerian militant group promised Sunday to release a sick British hostage held since September 2008. "Based on the milk of human kindness and compassion, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) will release Mr. Robin Barry Hughes on health and age considerations very soon," the group said in a written statement. "This release is not a quid pro quo but a gesture that puts us on a higher pedestal than the Nigerian government, whose ...