A round-up of other world news in brief
Chad tells UN mission to leave country
N’DJAMENA – Chad has told the United Nations peacekeeping mission to withdraw and wants a timetable for ending a deployment which the government never accepted.
President Idriss Deby is thought to view the presence of the international force as an encroachment on sovereign territory, and an unwelcome form of international attention.
A high-level UN team is in Chad for talks but diplomats said there was no scope for renegotiating the mission’s mandate, which runs out in March. It is not yet clear how long the withdrawal, which would also end the force’s presence in the neighbouring Central African Republic, would take. – (Reuters)
'Boy genius' sells paintings for £18k
HOLT – A seven-year-old British boy is being hailed as an art genius after selling 16 paintings for £18,000 (€20,000) in just 14 minutes.
Kieron Williamson from the eastern English town of Holt has drawn comparisons to Pablo Picasso, who was himself a child prodigy.
Inspired by the Norfolk landscape, Kieron’s atmospheric pastels, watercolours and oil paintings – valued at up to £1,500 each – show a maturity beyond his years.
His art career began on a family holiday to Cornwall when he was five. Inspired by the harbour view, he asked his parents for his first sketch-pad. From that moment on, he was hooked, according to his father Keith Williamson. – (Reuters)