junta

On Monday January 31st the military-civilian junta running Mali told France's ambassador to leave the country in a further escalation of the tension that has developed between the two nations in recent months. As Rémi Carayol observes, the next stage in the bitter war of words could be an announcement from Paris that France's military forces in the African country will be withdrawn.

After a lengthy legal battle, a former police officer under the 1976-1983 Argentine military dictatorship was finally extradited from France this month to Buenos Aires where he was wanted for the kidnapping and disappearance of student Hernán Abriata during the junta’s so-called “Dirty War”. Although it does not feature on his extradition warrant, Mario Sandoval is also suspected of involvement in about 500 cases of torture and murder, as part of a brutal crackdown on political dissidents when an estimated 30,000 people “disappeared”. Intriguingly, Sandoval, 66, successfully settled in France in 1985, gained dual French nationality and managed to become a university teacher and 'economic intelligence' consultant before he was first unmasked in 2008. Faiza Zerouala and Argentina correspondent Camille Audibert report.