BBC News with Nick Kelly.

The chairman of the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, has said the new military authorities in Niger have assured him that they intend to return the country to democratic rule. He was speaking during a visit to the capital, Niamey, for talks with the soldiers who took power last Thursday after ousting Mamadou Tandja as president. Caspar Leighton reports from Niamey.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas said the military authorities would include all of Niger's political and civil society in a transition period that would see a return to constitutional order. However, no time frame was given for this transition. A high-ranking member of the military authority, Colonel Djibrilla Hamidou Hima, said that President Mamadou Tandja, who was captured during the coup, was being held in a service quarters of the presidential palace, in what he said were very good conditions.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a controversial plan to add two major religious sites in the West Bank to Israel's national heritage list. The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem were not initially included, but the prime minister changed his mind following protests from right wingers in the governing coalition. Opponents of the move have expressed dismay. The former Palestinian cabinet minister, Mustafa Barghouti, said the decision amounted to a declaration from Israel that there was no hope for peace negotiations.