Mansour: Lebanese in Mali OK

Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour reassured the Lebanese Thursday that Lebanese expatriates living in Mali were unharmed after the African country’s army mounted a successful coup d'état earlier in the day. “The Lebanese community in Mali is fine and no one has been hurt following the developments in the country,” Mansour was quoted by the National News Agency as saying. He added that the director general of the Foreign Ministry, Haitham Jomaa, was following up on the case. The Malian army said Thursday that the military has taken over the country, which will now be governed by the military's National Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State. They also said they were suspending Mali's constitution and dissolving its institutions due to the government’s weak response to an insurgency that blossomed in north Mali when fighters who had supported Moammar Gadhafi returned home from Libya heavily armed.