When Africa's longest-serving dictator, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang, faced his first election in 1996, he won with 98 percent of the vote. His percentages in subsequent elections would never reach that high, dropping to 97 percent by the time of his fourth electoral contest, in 2009.
U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called on the Security Council to impose sanctions against Mali extremist groups accused of terrorism and desecrating Muslim religious shrines.
