boycott
the forthcoming elections unless the law was altered. Bethony Bell reports from Cairo.
Many political parties in Egypt including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood object to an article in the election law which they fear could allow supporters of the former president Hosni Mubarak to return to power. Now state media say the military council has agreed to amend that article. But no details have been given about the changes. The council which is under pressure to deliver a fast democratic reforms also said it would study the status of Egypt's emergency law.
Campaigning has begun in Tunisia for the first election since revolutions in January which inspired the Arab Spring, a wave of uprisings that swept north Africa and the middle east. Eighty-one political parties are vying for places on a national assembly that will draft a new constitution.
The Afghan government has asked the international community for more financial aid to tackle the severe
drought
in the country's northern and central provinces. Marianne Landzettel has more.
The government says after ten years of little or no rain, 14 provinces, a third of the country are experiencing severe draught conditions with the harvest in many areas failing. In some regions wells have dried out. The government says two million tonnes of grain mainly rice and wheat will have to be imported. Worst affected is the central Afghan province of Ghazni where the food orchards have withered and farmers are selling their cattle.