In the World

SYRIA

Wartime election

set for June 3

Syria called a presidential election for June 3, aiming to give President Bashar al-Assad a veneer of electoral legitimacy in the midst of a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the population from their homes.

The opposition and the U.S. denounced the vote as a farce, and a U.N. spokesman said it will "hamper the prospects for a political solution." But Assad's government seems determined to hold the election as a way of exploiting recent military gains.

The announcement Monday by Parliament Speaker Jihad Laham raises questions about how the government intends to hold any kind of credible vote within the deeply divided country, where large swaths of territory lie outside government control and hundreds of thousands of people live in rebel-held or contested areas or under blockade by pro-government forces. - AP
NIGERIA

New missing total

Parents of girls abducted April 14 by Islamist militants were searching for their daughters in a remote forest, they told the state governor Monday, adding that 234 were still missing, a much higher figure than authorities said had been kidnapped. Official figures put the number of abducted girls at 129, and Saturday, the Borno governor, Kassim Shettima, said 77 were still unaccounted for.

- Reuters
YEMEN

Al-Qaeda base is hit

Yemeni forces, reportedly backed by U.S. drone strikes, hit al-Qaeda militants for a second straight day Monday in what Yemen officials said was an assault on a major base of the terrorist group hidden in the remote southern mountains. The government said 55 militants were killed. The assault appeared to be a significant escalation in the U.S. and Yemeni campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group's powerful branch in the southern Arabian nation. - AP