The Venezuelan Information Minister said the medical team treating President Hugo Chavez in Cuba is optimistic about the success of his latest cancer operation. In a statement, Ernesto Villegas asked Venezuelans to pray for their leader who has been prepared for the surgery later today. Earlier the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa said the Venezuelan president was already undergoing surgery.

The United Nations has condemned the arrest of Mali's prime minister by the armed forces and renewed a threat to impose targeted sanctions. France and the United states have also denounced the forced resignation of the Prime Minister, Cheick Modibo Diarra. Unlike the military, Mr Diarra was in favor of the deploying a West African intervention force to try to drive out separatists and the Islamists who seized control of the north. Babara Plett reports from the UN in New York.