Baghdad / AFP Dozens of Iraqi lawmakers held an overnight sit-in at parliament to protest efforts by powerful political blocs to maintain control of key government posts, MPs said on Wednesday. The demonstration followed Tuesday’s postponement of a vote on a new lineup for the cabinet, which Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has said should include technocrats instead of the ...

  Ukraine / AFP Ukraine’s bickering parliament resumed horse-trading on Wednesday over the makeup of a new pro-EU government headed by the chamber’s speaker VolodymyrGroysman that could be voted on the following day. A senior member of President Petro Poroshenko’s party said that “according to my information, all the agreements have been reached and no further questions remain.” “We will ...

Sudan / AFP Among the sprawling thatch huts of Darfur’s Zamzam Camp for displaced civilians, there is little feeling a referendum on administrative status might remedy years of suffering caused by the conflict. The vote on whether Sudan’s restive west should unite its five states into a single region has been touted by Khartoum as proof of stability returning to ...