South Africa Wednesday warned it would not be used as a battleground to settle political scores by foreign nations after it expelled Rwandan diplomats suspected of masterminding attacks on dissidents.

"As the South African government, we want to send a very stern warning to anybody anywhere in the world that our country will not be used as a springboard to do illegal activities," Justice Minister Jeff Radebe told reporters.

Rwanda's senate on Thursday released a report fiercely critical of the record of the U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, saying the body had been "inefficient and incompetent".

The report from the Rwandan senate comes just a month before the central African nation marks the 20th anniversary of the genocide, which saw at least 800,000 people, overwhelmingly ethnic Tutsis, murdered by Hutu extremists.

A German court on Tuesday sentenced a former Rwandan town mayor to 14 years in jail for aiding genocide in a church massacre of hundreds of people 20 years ago.

The defendant, Onesphore Rwabukombe, 56, the former mayor of the town of Muvumba in northeastern Rwanda, showed no visible reaction when he was found guilty.

The U.N.-backed court for Rwanda on Tuesday acquitted on appeal former paramilitary police chief Augustin Ndindiliyimana and ex-elite battalion commander Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye of charges related to the 1994 genocide.

The Arusha, Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) reduced the sentence of a third officer Innocent Sagahutu, a squadron commander in the elite reconnaissance unit, from 20 years behind bars to 15.

At least 51 people perished in flooding and landslides in a night of torrential rain in the Burundi capital that swept away hundreds of homes and cut off roads and power, officials said Monday.

Police in Bujumbura said the toll was the highest in living memory from a disaster caused by freak weather, with more than 100 people also injured.

The trial in France of a former Rwandan army captain charged with complicity in the 1994 genocide was greeted in Rwanda as a belated but "good sign".

"It is history being made. We have always wondered why it has taken 20 years... it is late, but it is a good sign," Rwandan Justice Minister Johnston Busingye said of the trial of Pascal Simbikangwa, a former army captain who went on trial in Paris Tuesday.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday renewed a sanctions regime against Democratic Republic of Congo in a vote that sparked a furious row between Congo and Rwanda.

The council backed a sanctions committee report which says the M23 rebel group is recruiting in Rwanda despite its military defeat and that its leaders are moving freely in Uganda.

The U.S. military's partnership with France in Africa is "indispensable" in the fight against extremist groups in the Sahel region, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday.

During a visit to Washington, Le Drian said "terrorist groups are circulating across the whole Sahara-Sahel area and terrorist acts could put our own security at risk."

Human Rights Watch has condemned what it says is a "disturbing silence" in Rwanda over the murder of an anti-corruption activist six months ago, accusing police in the central African nation of foot-dragging.

Gustave Makonene, a local coordinator for the international graft watchdog Transparency International whose work included documenting allegations of police corruption, was found murdered in July last year.

The United States on Friday urged the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo to "redouble its efforts" in the fight against Rwandan Hutu rebels in the restive east of the country.

U.S. special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, Russ Feingold, pointed to the success of Congolese troops backed by a U.N. intervention force in November in stopping the M23 rebel movement in eastern North Kivu province.