Madagascar's government on Wednesday announced an international probe into allegations of rights abuses by its security forces during a recent crackdown on cattle-rustling gangs.

"Joint investigations will be carried out by the government and the international community so that there won't be doubts and questions about what happened there," Prime Minister Omer Beriziky's office said in a statement.

When she was 20 years old, Alphonsina Zara was pregnant with her first child. After three days of excruciating labor, though she was in a health center, her baby was stillborn.

Doctors found that she had developed a hole in her birth canal, a severe medical condition called obstetric fistula. She not only lost her baby, it disrupted her life for the next 14 years.

Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina and ousted leader Marc Ravalomanana left the Seychelles Thursday, after failing to strike a deal in talks aimed at ending three years of political crisis.

"The former president Marc Ravalomanana has left the Seychelles this morning by a commercial flight," a Seychelles government official said, adding that Rajoelina left shortly after.

Madagascan leader Andry Rajoelina and the man he toppled in 2009, Marc Ravalomanana, met Wednesday on a remote Seychelles island to force a breakthrough in reconciliation efforts.

"The face-to-face talks between the Madagascan transitional president and his predecessor began this morning on the island of Desroches," a Seychelles government official said.

Opposition radio Free FM has stopped broadcasting due to intimidation by Madagascar's military in the wake of a weekend mutiny, station manager Lalatiana Rakotondrazafy told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"We won't resume broadcasting until I am sure that there will be no more intimidation," she told AFP.

Troops staged a mutiny near Madagascar's main airport on Sunday, forcing the suspension of all flights, but the situation is now under control, the defense minister said.

Gunfire erupted at a military base near Antananarivo international airport at 6:00 am (03:00 GMT) and abated after four hours but then resumed intermittently, scaring off dozens of curious spectators, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Shakespeare asked if he should compare his lover "to a summer's day." A New York zoo suggests cockroaches instead.

Ahead of Valentine's Day next month the Bronx Zoo wants New Yorkers to pay $10 for the right to give their sweetheart's name -- or perhaps that of an ex -- to one of its Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

A jumping cockroach, a glow-in-the-dark fungus, a rust-eating bacterium and a leech named "T-rex" were among the top 10 new species discovered in the world last year, US scientists said Monday.

The creatures were uncovered in Brazil, Madagascar, South Africa, Peru, the Philippines, West Africa, the US state of Oregon, the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic Ocean.