LONDON (AP) -- British intelligence officials knew that the Nigerian man suspected of trying to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner had ties to U.K. extremists but did not consider him enough of a high risk to alert American authorities, a senior British official said Sunday...

Monday's Highlights of The Skanner News website

(GIN) – The recent announcement of resignation by a prominent black chief executive at South Africa's national power company, Eskom, has stirred outrage among a group of black professionals over a racially-divided climate at state jobs.

President Obama is facing increasing pressure to make a clear policy decision about the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It has been more than eight years since UN Forces entered the country on a mission to shut down Osama Bin Laden's terrorist base, and to topple the Taliban government that was sheltering al Qaeda. During the runup to last year's election President Obama pledged to make the Afghanistan conflict a priority. The battle to turn the war-torn terrorist haven into a stable democracy had been allowed to slide by the Bush administration, Obama said. His administration would do better ...

(GIN) – At a 2-day China-Africa summit held in Sharm El-Shaik, Egypt, China's premier pledged a generous $10 billion in new much-needed low interest loans to African nations over three years.

In 2004, Liz Grover bought a one-way ticket to Afghanistan. All she had in her pocket was a friend's address and $100 ... After the 9/11 attacks Grover was disturbed by the wave of anti-Muslim feeling that tended to lump all Muslims together as extremists. So she decided to go to the source and meet Muslim people on their own territory. "It wasn't easy to do this," she admits. "I was just about to turn 23. I'm willing to take chances, but I get scared like everyone else" ...

Until 1994, South Africa's system of Apartheid forbade people of different "races" to use the same stores, to attend the same schools or to reside under the same roof. Those oppressive segregation laws came to rip an Afrikaner family apart after the wife gave birth to a baby with dark skin and nappy hair in 1955 ...

KABUL (AP) -- NATO-led forces have recovered the remains of three American military contractors from the wreckage of a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that crashed two weeks ago in the rugged mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, the military said Tuesday...

(GIN) - South African riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at crowds of protesters in two communities east of Johannesburg who are demanding better housing, running water and electricity in their townships...

UNDERHILL, Vt. (AP) -- He's got a book deal, and a movie could be in the works. He's been to the White House to meet the president, to the Queen Mary ocean liner for a vacation and back to his modest 1830s Vermont farmhouse. He gives motivational speeches on the lecture circuit. Now, six months after his high-seas drama with Somali pirates finished with a happy ending, Capt. Richard Phillips is contemplating calling it quits ...