Niger’s new ruler

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33516, 23 April 1974, Page 5

Niger’s new ruler

f.V.Z. Press Association) I I COT()NOU (Dahomev), April 18. j Lieutenant - Colonel ISeyni Kountis has proj claimed himself Niger’s Chief ’of State and j named a 12-man allmilitary council to run the drought • stricken West African nation. The announcement came in a broadcast h\ the official radio station in the capital of iNiamey. three days after

i Lieutenant-Colonel Kountis ■ (toppled the Government of 1 President Hantani Diori in a ■military coup. Lieutenant-Colonel Kountis. the 43-year-old Chief of’ Staff of Niger’s army of 2500 men, named himself President of the Supreme Council. He retained his post as Chief of Staff and took on i the job of Minister of Development. Mr Diori, who was Niger’s President front the time it achieved independence from France in 1960, was unharmed and under house arrest, the new Chief of State said. Divorce rate I There were 65.641 divorces in Italy in the first . three years of the country’s controversial divorce law. the State Statistics Institute has announced. Italians are to vote on May 12 in a ref- 1 erendum to decide whether to repeal the law.—Rome, April 22. Canadian floods Swollen rivers fed by spring thaws spilled over sandbagged banks and dykes in Manitoba and Saskatchewan yesterday, forcing large-scale evacuations and causing widespread damage. No casualties were report-, ed.—Regina, April 22.