Two French journalists abducted, killed in Mali
DAKAR, Senegal – Gunmen abducted and killed two French radio journalists on assignment in northern Mali on Saturday, French and Malian officials said, grabbing the pair as they left the home of a rebel leader.
The deaths come four days after France rejoiced at the release of four of its citizens who had been held for three years by al-Qaida’s affiliate in North Africa.
It was not immediately clear who had slain the French journalists. France launched a military intervention in January in its former colony to try and oust the jihadists from power in Kidal and other towns across northern Mali. Separatist rebels have since returned to the area.
Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont were grabbed by several armed men in a 4x4 after they finished an interview, officials said.
Their bodies were later dumped about 10 miles outside the town on the road leading to Tinessako, a community to the east of Kidal, said a person who saw the bodies and four officials briefed on the matter.
Pussy Riot member sent to new prison
MOSCOW – The Interfax news agency cites Russia’s prison service as saying Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is being sent to a new penal colony.
The report Saturday comes after complaints by her husband that there had been no contact with Tolokonnikova in recent days.
The Federal Penitentiary Service said Tolokonnikova was being sent to a new prison and that in accordance with regulations her family would be informed within 10 days of arrival, Interfax said. Service officials could not be reached for comment.
Tolokonnikova is serving two years after the band’s politically provocative performance in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in 2012.
She went on hunger strike to protest prison conditions in September and was hospitalized. The prison service said in mid-October that she would be moved.
Revenge killings in Egypt leave 9 dead
ASSIUT, Egypt – Security officials in Egypt say a fight between two families sparked by a dispute in a line to buy bread has killed nine people.
The officials said Saturday the feud began a month earlier in a town in the southern governorate of Assiut when a member of the Shaibaa tribe was killed in a fight about who was first in line to buy bread. Four members of the rival family were charged over the killing.
After a court hearing Saturday, officials say members of the Shaibaa pursued the defendants’ relatives, killing two and their driver. The officials say the bereaved relatives then went to the house of the Shaibaa and killed six.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Revenge killings are common in southern Egypt.
Defiant Toronto mayor repeats he won’t resign
TORONTO – Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford reiterated Saturday that he won’t resign despite mounting pressure for him to step aside after police said they had obtained a copy of a video that appears to show the mayor puffing on a crack pipe.
Ford smiled outside his office and said: “No. As I told you before, I’m not resigning.”
Allegations that the mayor of Canada’s largest city had been caught on the video smoking crack cocaine first surfaced in May. Two reporters with the Toronto Star and one from the U.S. website Gawker said they saw the video but did not obtain a copy. Police Chief Bill Blair said he was “disappointed” in Ford at a news conference Thursday in which he announced that the video had been recovered from a computer hard drive during an investigation of an associate of the mayor’s suspected of providing him drugs.
Associated Press
