IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Libya

General election voting underway

Polling was underway across Libya on Wednesday in a general election seen as crucial for the future of a country hit by months of political chaos and growing unrest.

Polling stations opened at 0600 GMT, with 1.5 million registered voters choosing from among the 1,628 candidates contesting the 200 seats in the General National Congress, or parliament.

Belgium

No membership step for Georgia

NATO will stop short of approving a formal step to membership for Georgia at its summit in September, officials said on Wednesday, dodging a possible confrontation with Moscow over the alliance's expansion to Russia's neighbors. NATO members agreed in principle to draw up a "substantive package" of cooperation with Georgia that would help it move closer to NATO, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a meeting of alliance foreign ministers.

Mali

Peacekeeping mission drags

Mali called on the United Nations to speed up deploying the remainder of its promised 12,000-member peacekeeping force and station more troops in the West African nation's turbulent north. Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea on Wednesday, said the UN mission in Mali had so far deployed only 8,000 troops and less than half of the promised logistical resources.

Nigeria

60 women, girls abducted

Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted more than 60 women and girls, some as young as three, in the latest kidnappings in northeast Nigeria, over two months since more than 200 schoolgirls were seized. Analysts said the latest kidnapping, which happened during a raid late on Monday on Kummabza village in the Damboa district of Borno state, could be an attempt by the Islamist group to refocus attention on its demands for the release of militant fighters.

India

Protests help lower rail fares

India's new government has partly withdrawn a steep rise in rail fares announced last week, in a change to the first difficult policy reform attempted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The railways ministry announced last Friday that passenger fares would increase by 14.2 percent and freight rates by 6.5 percent with effect from June 25, the steepest hike in the last 15 years. The changes were seen as the first dose of the "bitter medicine" that Modi has warned is needed to revive the economy.

AFP - Reuters

(China Daily 06/26/2014 page11)