Myanmar’s desperate military junta is ramping up attacks on villages that have fallen to opposition groups, carrying out beheadings, gang rapes and torture, with women, children and the

Mali’s Prime Minister Choguel Maiga has been fired, state television ORTM said on Wednesday of the civilian who criticized the ruling junta’s failure to organize elections within a promised 24-month transition back to democracy.

It follows rare criticism by Maïga of the junta's lack of clarity about a once-promised return to democracy. A decree read on state television by junta leader Col Assimi Goïta said the duties of the prime minister and the members of the government were "terminated".