This is the World News from the BBC.
President Raul Castro of Cuba has sacked the cabinet minister
responsible for
basic industry including oil and nickel production. A statement said the minister, Yadira Garcia, had been removed from her post because of shortcomings of the ministry and weak management of production and investment. It's the latest in a series of changes to Cuba's leadership since Raul Castro replaced his brother Fidel as president.
France has sent dozens of soldiers to the West African country of Niger to try to find seven hostages, five of them French. The soldiers are using
reconnaissance
planes to search the Sahara Desert for the captives, who were seized from their homes in northern Niger on Thursday. The French government believes they were probably abducted by gunmen from al-Qaeda's North Africa branch.
The former head coach of Togo's national football squad has been suspended for three years for allegedly taking a team of
imposter
s to play in Bahrain two weeks ago. The Togolese football federation said the match had been organized without its knowledge. Roger Walker reports.
The crowd in Bahrain on 7 September was puzzled and disappointed that the team purporting to be Togo played so poorly, losing the match 3-0. When news reached Lome, the Togolese football federation was
perplexed
since at the time of the bogus international in the Middle East, the real Togo team was returning from a match in Botswana. In a statement on Monday, the federation put the blame for organizing the fake fixture squarely on the ex-national coach Tchanile Bana and banned him for three years.