ABUJA (Reuters) - West Africa's regional bloc ECOWAS will start deploying troops to Guinea-Bissau by Friday to oversee a reform of the local army and a transition back to civilian rule after an April 12 military coup, Nigeria's defence minister said on Monday. "We will deploy before the 18th of this month," Mohammed Bello Haliru told reporters on the margins of a meeting of the 15-state bloc's military chiefs in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Haliru did not give any more details on the mission. ...

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - The European Union will grant Cameroon 48 million euros for its banana sector as the Central African country seeks to double its annual output to 500,000 tonnes by 2013, state radio said on Friday. It quoted EU resident representative Raul Mateus Paula as noting that the EU had signed an interim Economic Partnership Agreement with Cameroon in 2009 and was currently negotiating a full EPA for the Central Africa sub-region. EPAs are designed to reduce trade barriers between the EU and its partners. ...

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Year-on-year inflation in Ivory Coast fell to 0.6 percent in March from 2.0 percent in February, figures from the National Statistics Institute showed on Monday. The monthly report showed food and soft drinks declined 2.8 percent, power, gas and water prices climbed 1 percent, communication slipped 6.1 percent, and healthcare rose 0.1 percent. Ivory Coast's economy makes up around 40 percent of the eight-nation West African CFA franc currency zone.

BANJUL (Reuters) - West African regional bloc ECOWAS slapped sanctions on Guinea-Bissau's military rulers on Monday and threatened to use force to dislodge them, after talks to restore constitutional order in the coup-stricken nation broke down. Guinea-Bissau has been run by soldiers since an April 12 coup that derailed presidential elections and set back Western efforts to combat drug cartels using the country as a transit hub for cocaine bound for Europe. ...

Guinea-Bissau's coup leaders released the country's ousted prime minister and interim president after more than two weeks of captivity, allowing the former leaders to travel to Ivory Coast.