Preparing for elections

Voter registration for presidential elections billed for 28 November was launched on Sunday in Guinea-Bissau's capital, according to sources there. Elsewhere in the country, election officials are undergoing three-day training programmes after which they will register voters over a two-week period, a humanitarian source in Bissau told IRIN. Political parties have until 29 September to field their candidates for the presidential race, the source said. The elections are to be held on 28 November, according to an agreement signed late last year between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a Military Junta which mutinied against him in June 1998 and eventually overthrew him in May 1999. Police confirm former minister was murdered Preparations for the elections were clouded by the death on Sunday of former minister Nicandro Barreto. A Portuguese radio station quoted police as confirming that he had been killed. "We believe this was the work of a killer or killers whose aim was to murder Mr Nicandro Pereira Barreto," Police Inspector Jose Lima told Portugal's RDP Antena 1 radio on Monday. Barreto was a former home affairs minister, attorney-general and justice minister under Vieira.