News in brief

Canada hosts first meeting of Women FMs
AFP, Montreal
Women foreign ministers from around the world kicked off a first-of-its-kind meeting on Friday, bringing together more than half of the world’s top women diplomats in Montreal.
Women are “key to finding solutions to the political, economic and social challenges facing our societies,” Canada’s top diplomat Chrystia Freeland said Friday at the opening of the two-day summit.

Cholera outbreak in Nigeria claims 100 lives
AFP, Lagos
A cholera outbreak in north-eastern Nigeria has claimed nearly 100 lives over the past two weeks, the United Nations said Saturday.
More than 3,000 cholera cases have been recorded in the states of Yobe and Borno in a region that is also grappling with a Boko Haram insurgency, it said.
“The cumulative number of recorded cases in both states currently stands at 3,126 including 97 deaths,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

Roadside bombing kills 8 Afghan
AP, Kabul
An Afghan official says at least eight children have been killed in a roadside bomb explosion in northern Faryab province.
Karim Yuresh, spokesman for the provincial police chief, says six other kids were wounded in the blast that took place late Friday afternoon in Shirin Tagab district.

Journalist murdered in Mexico
AFP, Mexico
Gunmen on Friday killed a Mexican journalist who had received threats after reporting on corruption in the southern state of Chiapas, his newspaper said, in what was at least the ninth murder of a reporter in the country this year.
Mario Gomez, a reporter with El Heraldo de Chiapas, is the latest victim in a wave of violence against the press in Mexico, the second-deadliest country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.