Talks will resume soon between the Malian government and an ethnic Tuareg rebel group whose influence has been growing in the country's north, Burkina Faso's foreign minister said Monday.

No immediate date was given for the negotiations, though the announcement comes amid lingering questions about the future of rebel-held Kidal.

It has remained unclear how the town could take part in long-awaited elections now promised for July. Earlier this month, a Malian military spokesman said Mali was in the final stages of preparation for an assault on the northern provincial capital.

Burkina Faso Foreign Affairs Minister Djibril Bassole told journalists that talks would soon resume. The last negotiations were back in December before the French launched a military offensive to oust radical jihadists who had battled with the Tuareg rebels for control of Kidal and other northern cities.

"In the days to come, contact will be made with all the players and partners from the international community so that favorable conditions can be set up for holding elections in a calm atmosphere with the participation of all," he said.

Those conditions must include the disarmament of rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, or the NMLA. The group that controls Kidal has exerted its influence in the months since the French-led offensive ousted the jihadists from major towns in the region.

NMLA fighters man the roadblocks in Kidal, and they have since started collecting taxes and appointed their own governor, thumbing their nose at the Malian state even as French soldiers continue to occupy the Kidal airport.

Kidal's confused status has become an embarrassment for the French as well as for the Malian government.

Many Malians remain opposed to the idea of negotiating with the Tuaregs, blaming them for the unrest that has devastated the country's economy and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

A Tuareg rebellion last year and the Malian military's weak response to it first prompted mutinous soldiers to overthrow the president in a coup. The turmoil allowed jihadists to make inroads into the north, where they established a strict form of Islamic law that meted out public amputations and executions.

Tuaregs, though, remain deeply concerned about having the Malian military return to Kidal, fearing that the military could seek revenge after their humiliating defeat last year at the hands of the NMLA. Already in Timbuktu, in Gao and in Sevare, the Malian army is accused of carrying out reprisal killings of Tuareg civilians accused of complicity with the rebels.

Bassole's comment Monday came after he met with the newly appointed Malian envoy to Kidal Tiebele Drame and Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore. Compaore had served as a mediator in the Mali crisis for the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS. At talks held in Ouagadougou last December, the NMLA agreed to stop pursuing a separate state in Mali's north called Azawad.

The Tuaregs, a traditionally nomadic people spread across the Sahara Desert, have risen up against the central government in Mali several times since the country's independence from France in 1960. They have long complained that Mali's government - which is dominated by ethnic groups from the country's south - has ignored the nation's impoverished north.

A Libyan gas company official says militiamen have attacked a natural gas complex in the country's west, injuring two guards and stealing weapons and military vehicles.

The official says the attack took place early Monday and targeted the Mellitah Oil and Gas complex near Zwara, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) from the capital, Tripoli. The complex is a joint venture between Libya's National Oil Corp. and Italy's largest energy company, Eni SpA. The militiamen fled the site briefly after seizing weapons and equipment from the guards.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

A military official told Libya's official news agency that military helicopters are searching for the attackers.

Over a year after toppling Muammar Gaddafi's regime, Libya is plagued by lawlessness.

Suspected foreign fighters backing a rebel movement now in control of Central African Republic's government invaded a remote north-central village and killed six people, residents said.

The assault on the town of Bouca on Friday came just days after other armed fighters took a dozen civilians hostage in another village in the same area, Yaloke. Two people were killed in the violence there.

Central African Republic has long been a volatile country plagued by coups and rebellions, and the latest turmoil erupted in December when several rebel groups joined together to oust the longtime president. Since December, when they succeeded in overthrowing the government, the rebels have been accused of killing civilians and of rampant looting.

Last week the United Nations envoy to the country expressed alarm about the deteriorating situation.

"An already challenging human rights environment, marked by systemic violation of rights even by law enforcement officers, has collapsed into a state of anarchy and total disregard for international law, as elements of Seleka turned their vengeance against the population," Margaret Vogt told the United Nations Security Council.

While the abuses in the capital of Bangui have been well documented, reports of attacks on civilians in the outlying provinces long outside the control of the national government have sometimes only trickled in days later.

In Bouca, residents who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals, say four vehicles full of armed gunmen entered the village on Friday, where they shot dead six people. The town is located 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the capital of Bangui.

Witnesses said the men did not speak Sango, the local language of Central African Republic. For some time, there have been allegations they have been aided by Sudanese and Chadian fighters.

Gunmen from Sudan's Darfur region known as Janjaweed were seen in the company of Seleka fighters in northern Central African Republic after the government overthrow. An Associated Press reporter saw them traveling in vehicles alongside Seleka rebels operating in the area.

Also Friday, rebels traveled into the countryside to rob people who had fled Batangafo, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) further north of the violence in Bouca. The fighters there stole 26 cattle and also assaulted a herder, residents said. In other communities in the region, rebels also have gone door-to-door seeking money and other valuable objects including motorcycles.

According to a statement released by the anti-poverty agency, ActionAid Nigeria said that the conclusion is too simplistic and the result misleading especially to policy makers.

In a statement issued by the organisation, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria noted that the conclusions of the poll are too simplistic and did not consider the multi-dimensional approach to the definition of poverty.

He said, “the conclusions of the poll trivialised the true situation of poverty in the country and reduced it to responses from very few Nigerians with certain levels of privileges. He further stated that, “the methodology of the poll is flawed and the report is misleading especially to policy makers”.

He further stated, “the report is not only misleading, we are shocked that NOI could use a poll exercise to insult the poor citizens and cavalierly wave people’s suffering, misery and trepidation”.

According to Abdu, “the poll interviewed selected adults who own mobile phones and did not profile respondents in other ways such as occupation, gender, age and specific location. He said, “while it is a fact that there are over one hundred million active GSM lines in the country, the actual population of phone users has not been established given the fact that several people own more than two active mobile lines”.

Abdu said, "it is ridiculous to state that most Nigerians now eat in canteens”. He further noted that the concept of eating in canteens, restaurants or local food joints is entirely foreign to many Nigerians. He said, “the items listed as being eaten by the respondents including bread, rice, spaghetti and noodles are out of reach for most rural and urban poor in the country.

“The staple food in most Nigerian homes is mainly local food crops such as grains, made up of millet, sorghum and cowpeas in the North and tubers such as yam, cocoyam in the South”.

The Director of the anti-poverty agency further stated that the report has quoted old National Bureau of Statistics report, which was subsequently withdrawn. According to him, “the national poverty rate has remained static since 2004 and has not increased by 10% as claimed by the NOI report”.

He said, “the NOI report questions the method of applying Purchasing Power Parity rather than calculate directly using the USD/Naira exchange rate when in fact this internationally applied method is tailored per country using Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) and gives greater accuracy and local grounding to the $1.25 per day measurement per country”.

“The NOI Polls’ conclusion is not internally coherent”, he said. “If the national average spent on food each day is N713, this would add up to N 21,390 per month. If 52% of the population are living below the minimum wage of N18,000 per month (a figure cited in the report), how can the average adult be spending more than that just on food? What about their other basic needs such as healthcare, education and care for dependants?” Abdu asks.

The anti- poverty agency head said, “NOI should avoid politicising poverty. These statistics are about people who have been abused, debased and violated by the state - through policies that continue to exclude them and violate their fundamental human rights”.

He therefore urged the NOI Polls to review its methodologies and consider a more robust approach to arriving at the level of poverty in Nigeria.