November 14, 2000

At a ceremony in Niger, a Sahel country, on 25 September, President Tanja Mamadou set fire to a pile of 1,000 weapons and announced an end to several internal rebellions, most notably that of the Tuaregs. The leader of the Tuaregs, Muhammad Anako, attended the ceremony and announced the formal dissolution of the Tuareg rebel forces.--Stephen V Cole