Mali

ALGIERS, Algeria - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Algeria's assistance Monday for any future military intervention in Mali, pressing the North African nation to provide intelligence - if not boots on the ground - to help rout the al-Qaeda-linked militants across its southern border. Clinton, on the first stop of a five-day trip overseas, met with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as the United States and its allies ramped up preparations to fight northern Mali's breakaway Islamist republic.

Group kicks out Holocaust denier VATICAN CITY - A traditionalist group of breakaway Catholics on Wednesday expelled a Holocaust-denying bishop whose views sparked a major Vatican crisis in 2009. The Society of St. Pius X said its governing council expelled Bishop Richard Williamson because he ignored a deadline to "declare his submission" to its authority and had called for the society's superior to resign. A spokesman for the group said Williamson's comments about the Holocaust were part of the reason for his expulsion.

PARIS - France will move surveillance drones to West Africa and is holding secretive talks with U.S. officials in Paris this week as it seeks to steer international military action to help Mali's feeble government win back the northern part of the country from al-Qaeda-linked rebels, the Associated Press has learned. France and the United Nations insist any invasion of Mali's north must be led by African troops. But France, which has six hostages in Mali and has citizens who have joined al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is playing an increasing role behind the scenes.

DREXEL'S FIRST basketball recruit making an oral commitment for the 2013-14 season is Mohamed Bah, a 6-9 senior forward at Lee Academy in Maine. Bah, from the republic of Mali in West Africa via Quincy, Mass., is described by online recruiting services as "a finisher with explosiveness around the rim. " He also is a shot blocker "who runs the floor well. " Reports indicate Bah is still developing offensively. One service says Drexel landed Bah before many Division I schools knew about him. Bah also visited Towson and Fairfield.

A PHILADELPHIA jury on Monday began hearing testimony in the trial of Donald Guy, the man accused of fatally shooting a husband and wife in their heads during a robbery in the African immigrant couple's clothing store in Feltonville. "The evidence in this case will come together like a puzzle," Assistant District Attorney Bill Davis told the jury, noting that the defendant's DNA and fingerprints link him to the slayings. Davis, as early as Tuesday, will also attempt to convict Guy with the testimony of Thomas Foggy, Guy's alleged accomplice, who pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree murder last week in exchange for his testimony and a prison sentence of 27 1/2 to 65 years.

BAMAKO, Mali - Islamist fighters with ties to al-Qaeda have destroyed tombs classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Mali's historic city of Timbuktu, a resident and U.N. officials said Saturday. Irina Bokova, who heads the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said in a statement Saturday that the centuries-old Muslim mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi, Moctar and Alpha Moya have been destroyed. Resident Ali Yattara said Saturday that the Islamists began attacking the saints' tombs with shovels.

BAMAKO, Mali - Mali's interim president, who was beaten by a mob of demonstrators who broke into his office this week, has left the country to seek medical treatment in France, an adviser and two French government officials said Wednesday. The unexpected, and unpublicized, departure of 70-year-old Dioncounda Traore leaves a dangerous power vacuum in the West African nation, which was thrown off course after a March coup. Contacted by telephone, an adviser to Traore said the interim president had left Mali for France to undergo medical tests on his heart because he has had a previous heart attack.