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Andry Rajoelina, the leader of Madagascar, announced that he will not run in elections due to be held later this year. He stated his reason as an attempt to end the country’s political crisis. Rajoelina has been pressured to find a solution to the crisis. At the same time as his announcement not to run as a candidate, he announced the planned dates for both the parliamentary and presidential elections. The parliamentary elections were announced for September, with the presidential election following in November. Rajoelina announced his d

Nigeria has announced that an airport has been named after late president Umaru Yar’Adua. The announcement to re-name Katsina Airport was made by President Goodluck Jonathan. Yar’Adua died earlier this month after being ill for several months. He was not seen in public since November 2009. President Jonathan released a statement saying that the decision was taken "in recognition of his [Yar'Adua's] contribution to national development." The airport is located in Katsine, Yar’Adua’s home state. A road in Abuja is also to be renamed after the l

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview. The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austeri

Viswanathan Anand, a chess grandmaster from India, has retained the world championship title after a match with Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov. The match, consisting of a dozen games, was played in the Bulgarian capital Sofia over the last twenty days. Anand received the first-place prize of 1.2 million euro, whilst Topalov took 800,000 euro. The awards ceremony was attended yesterday by the Bulgarian prime minister, Boyko Borisov, and the international chess federation FIDE's president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Going into the last game, both

At least fourteen people in Pakistan's North Waziristan region have been killed in drone strikes earlier today by suspected US unmanned aircraft. The attacks happened in the Dattakhel village, located near the Afghanistan border; as many as eighteen missiles were fired at targets, according to security authorities. A local intelligence official said that "Three missiles hit a vehicle and three militants sitting in it were killed." A nearby compound used by rebels was also attacked; around a dozen missiles were fired by drones. The dead in tha

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in remarks made at a meeting with officials from Afghanistan, said that the US would continue to support Afghanistan even after the withdrawal of US troops from the country next summer. Clinton made her statements at the beginning of a meeting between US and Afghan officials in Washington DC to forge a plan on how to handle the conflict with the Taliban in the future. The talks are intended to mend some of the disagreements between the governments of the two countries, which have been in confl

A Pakistani man, identified as Muhammad Saif-ur-Rehman Khan, 28, was arrested in Chile on Monday after he was found with traces of explosives in the US Embassy. Chilean police say that traces of Tetryl, used to help detonate explosives, were detected. Yesterday a judge ordered Khan's continued detention under anti-terrorism laws. It has been reported that Khan was in Chile for four months, and was called to the embassy to be told that his visa]] for the US was revoked. A US official told Reuters that "based on the information that we had, we

Tuesday saw Colonel Donald Ethell assume the post of provincial Lieutenant Governor in Edmonton, capital of Alberta, Canada. The swearing-in ceremony took place at Edmonton's Legislative Building, with the retired colonel inspecting the guard afterwards. As is traditional, the taking of the oath of office was accompanied by a fifteen-gun salute. The 72-year-old decorated war veteran assumes the post from Norman Kwong, who served from January 20 in 1995. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the appointment last Thursday. Ethell has served C

An Afriqiyah Airways-owned aeroplane, originating from South Africa, has crashed on approach to Tripoli International Airport in Libya at around 06:00 Eastern European time (0400 UTC). Initial reports indicated everyone on board died, which officials say is 93 passengers and 11 crew, but later developments say an eight-year-old boy was the sole survivor; however, this is unconfirmed. The plane left Johannesburg in South Africa with the aim of transferring at Tripoli before heading to the final destination, United Kingdom's London Gatwick Airpo

Several attacks in three different parts of Iraq yesterday killed over 100 people and injured almost 350 more, making Monday the deadliest day in the country this year. Early on Monday morning, attacks with automatic weapons against six army and police checkpoints in the city of Baghdad killed seven police officers, with three other bombings in the city killing another two policemen. An official from Iraq's interior ministry said that the attacks in Baghdad began at around 0630 local time (0330 UTC), not ending until around 0800 local time (0

David Cameron was today appointed the new British Prime Minister. This follows five days of negotiation after the May 6 general election resulted in a hung parliament. While the Conservative Party won the largest number of seats, they lacked enough for a majority government, and will consequently form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who took the third-largest number. The agreement induces Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, becoming Deputy Prime Minister, five Cabinet seats for Liberal Democrat members and a compromise between policies

Reports suggest methane gas was to blame for two explosions in a Russian coal mine which are thought to have left up to twelve miners dead and eighty others unaccounted for. Local officials say at least 41 miners have been injured. The explosions come after calls for coal mines in Russia to improve their poor safety records. Over three hundred miners were underground when the first explosion occurred just prior to midnight on Saturday night and most of them were brought safely to the surface. However, officials report that eleven miners died