UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged late on Saturday quick implementation of a West African accord requiring a military junta in Mali to step down and hand over power to lawful authorities.

The ju

Mali's military junta and the West African bloc ECOWAS announced a deal on state television that includes the lifting of sanctions and an amnesty for those involved in the coup.

The deal provides a

Mali's two-week-old junta agreed on Friday to hand over rule to civilians in return for the end of sanctions by worried neighbors who had threatened to strangle the economy of the West African country

A renowned extremist leader and his fighters on Monday seized control of Timbuktu and chased out the Tuareg rebels with whom they captured Mali's fabled city a day earlier, witnesses said.

"Iyad (Ag

The junior officer who overthrew Mali's democratically elected leader earlier this month and dissolved the nation's constitution made a public U-turn Sunday, declaring amid enormous international pres

The Malian army on Saturday fought off a Tuareg rebel assault on Gao, the main town in northern Mali, said new junta chief Captain Amadou Sanogo.

"The president informs the people that rebel assailan

Members of the military junta that seized power in Mali last week will not be allowed to stand in legislative and presidential elections, under the new constitution outlined late on Tuesday.

"Any per

Renegade Malian soldiers went on state television on Thursday to declare they had seized power in a coup after the government's failure to quell a nomad-led rebellion in the north.

The soldiers of th

Two days of fierce clashes between the Malian army and Tuareg rebels killed 47 people - 45 rebels and two soldiers, the west African nation's defence ministry said in a statement published Thursday.

A statement from a group identifying itself as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Europeans in Mali in two separate incidents, the SITE monitoring gro