SOUTH AFRICA: The ruling ANC’s youth league warned former minister Ronnie Kasrils yesterday that it is considering filing a formal complaint over his campaign for people not to vote.

It accused him of allowing his “fictional writing to dominate his mind,” plumping up his role in the struggle against apartheid.

The league warned: “If Uncle Ronnie continues to be troublesome we shall allow proper characterisation of (him) to be known and he will age a very bitter and angry man.

SYRIA: Government troops seized two villages north of Damascus yesterday as the military pushed back against rebels.

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces took over Sarkha in the early hours before driving rebels out of nearby Christian village Maaloula.

The capture was a propaganda coup for the president, who claims he is the only one able to protect Syria’s patchwork of religions and cultures from hardline Islamic rebels.

CHINA: The International Transport Workers Federation pledged to increase its work with the All China Federation of Trade Unions yesterday.

The two bodies signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing committing them to greater dialogue and information sharing.

ITF president Paddy Crumlin called it a “historical further step forward” for protecting transport workers across the world.

IRAN: Chief nuclear negotiator Ali Akbar Salehi raised concerns yesterday that the country’s only active nuclear power plant needs more centrifuges to keep going.

Mr Salehi is locked in talks with Western powers pushing Iran to reduce its capacity to enrich uranium.

But he said Iran needs 30,000 more centrifuges to run the Bushehr plant for a year.

CHILE: The forest fire near the port of Valparaiso has now killed 12 people, injured 500 and destroyed 2,000 homes, officials said yesterday.

As helicopters and aeroplanes dumped water on the the wildfires, 10,000 people had been made homeless, with a further 700 at risk if the winds turned.

ALGERIA: The Defence Ministry said yesterday that six militants had been killed in weekend operations in the centre and far east of the country.

It announced that an army unit ambushed and killed two militants in the mountainous Kabylie region in the center of the country early on Sunday.

In the late afternoon, another unit carrying out search operations in the eastern Khenchela region killed four other militants.

FRANCE: Police started taking DNA samples yesterday from more than 500 male students and staff at a school in La Rochelle where a girl was raped last September.

This unprecedented testing is voluntary but anyone refusing to take part could come under further suspicion.

The 16-year-old girl was raped in the toilets of the Catholic school.

PAKISTAN: Police arrested two men on suspicion of cannibalism yesterday after finding body parts including what appeared to be a child’s skull in one of their houses.

Neighbours in Khawar Kalan village complained to police about a foul smell coming from the house.

Police said the homeowner and his brother were suspected of digging up the bodies at a nearby cemetery, as one of them had been seen lurking there previously.