NEWS
Mali sets 7 July election date
Mali will hold nationwide presidential elections on 7
July, the interim government's territorial administration minister has
announced.
It would be a key step to stabilising Mali following the intervention of
French troops to oust Islamist fighters from the north of the country, he said.
Legislative elections will follow on 21 July, along with a presidential
run-off if required.
Thousands of troops from France and African nations are currently in Mali.
Elections were due in Mali in April 2012, but a coup the month before threw
the country into disarray.
Foreign workers abducted in Bauchi state
Seven foreign workers have been seized and a security
guard shot dead by gunmen who attacked a construction company site in northern
Nigeria, officials say.
One of the workers seized was Italian, one was Greek and two others
Lebanese.
But UK officials could not confirm a report that another was British.
No-one has admitted the abductions but the Islamist militant group, Boko
Haram, has staged a series of attacks in northern Nigeria.
A security guard was killed as the attackers targeted the workers' camp at
Jama'are in Bauchi state.
Correspondents say it is the biggest kidnapping in northern Nigeria in
recent times.
Foreigners held in Libya on suspicion of proselytizing
Four foreign nationals have been arrested in the eastern
Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries, officials
say.
A spokesman for Preventative Security said they were under investigation for
printing and distributing tens of thousands of books about Christianity.
Proselytising was forbidden in the predominantly Muslim country, he added.
Those arrested were an Egyptian, a South African, a South Korean and a Swede
with joint US citizenship.
Brahimi urges Syria peace talks at UN
Lakhdar Brahimi, the
UN-Arab League joint envoy, has called for talks between the Syrian
opposition and an "acceptable delegation" from the Damascus
government on a political solution to the country's 23-month-old civil war.
In a joint press conference in Cairo
with Nabil El-Araby, the Arab League secretary-general, Brahimi said on Sunday
that negotiations could begin on UN premises. He gave no specific
location.
The initiative of opposition leader
Mouaz al-Khatib, which calls for talks with any Syrian
representative not directly involved in repression, "has opened the door
and challenged the Syrian government to live up to what it has been
continuously saying, that it is ready for dialogue and a peaceful solution",
Brahimi said.
Khatib, the head of the Syrian
National Coalition, offered last week to hold talks with President Bashar
al-Assad's ceremonial deputy, Farouq al-Sharaa, on a political transition in
which Assad would be given safe passage to go into exile.
COMMENTARIES:
1) INSECURITY/ TERRORISM TODAY- CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN, IRAQ AND NIGERIA.
2) THE BAUCHI KIDNAP
3) ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND JOB CREATION
4) LOCAL POLITICS- THE MERGER OF OPPOSITION PARTIES AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS
