You are watching france 24. Palestinian Prisoners Released by the israelis have revived in the west bank. The 26 men are set free. The promorsi protester has been shot dead. The new leader of mali, his rival conceded defeat. The president of tunisia has suggested a unity to end the ongoing crisis. Stay with us. We are asking if mali is finally turning a corner after the first election in more than six years. The country was split in two. He looks to have won that election after his rival conceded defeat. On my left, is in paris studying engineer. An independent journalist and producer of the world memory film project. In london, jeremy keenan, or fester of African Studies at london university. He forget back to our discussions, we have this report on the challenges facing the new leader. National recognization National Reconciliation is at the top of the list of challenges. Ethnic tensions are running high. The government signed a peace deal with the rebels that paves the way to sundays elections. It included a promise that the new president would negotiate with the rebels within two months of his election victory. These talks will determine whether these rebels will be integrated into the army. Another potential threats, the army. It was the soldiers inability to deal with that tuareg rebellion. The future president will have to rebuild the armies reputation and remind his soldiers of their duty. The eu will train 3000 malian soldiers over a period of 15 months. Last but not least, the future president one hair at a country festering with corruption and an economy that reached a virtual standstill in the last year. While that remains the continents Third Largest gold producer, the economy contracted by. 5 in 2012. Youth unemployment is soaring. The challenges are huge, and the country can count on foreign financial assistance. The president ial elections have launched aid promised by international donors. Is it time to give that tuareg the state they have been campaigning for . It its not the time to give the north its own independence. I do not believe the north wants to be part of the other one. On the dividing line . Yes. It is pretty much inside. Your family and everyone . They might except a smaller version. If you look at how the french went down, when the french got into the north, everybody was happy to i do not think it is a solution. I did not think the question is one of a time to meet where statehood as much as it is one of fair treatment and better control of that part of the world. This has not been an area of terrorism and discrimination, it has also been area of drug running. The drug running was essentially controlled via people in the south. These inequities that have existed are the First Step Towards ensuring that the tuareg or anybody else are not to be discriminated against. I completely agree with that idea. The separation, north and south, that is not the main problem. The main problem is how to control the region. The people see the north as unworthy of Better Development or as belonging to a group of people against them . I do not believe that is how they see the north. They are saying they are terrorists. It is because a lot of people , a lot of mali and in the south put the blame on the latest crisis on that tuareg. Through a lot of propaganda. They took advantage of what was going on and there was a coup. They try to seize their own territory by teaming up with islamists that were very badly wrong for them. At the end of the day, they blame the fighting we would not be talking about this if the million state malian state had taken better care to develop the north. They are not blaming themselves. The tuareg did not cause the coup detat. They did not cause corruption. They did not cause the lack of development in the north. They did not cause drugrunning. There is confusion. We are putting in the same hat the tuareg and the islamists and the rebels that came from different parts of africa. We are putting those all in the same hat. I do not think the tar eggs tuareg are part of this movement. There is a clear separation from the al qaeda in west africa. There is clearly misunderstanding between the mullions of the south malians of the south. The country is very big. Jeremy, what do you think about what you are hearing . What is this division between the tuareg and the rest of the people in mali . Everyone has been making a lot of good points. A lot of deep history. Mali, people have got on fairly well over a long period of time. There are fundamental differences in the north. The south is blamed tuareg for a lot of things they are not responsible for. One should say that tuareg themselves have been a little bit responsible for this in some respects, one point i would make, we have been talking about the islamists. The beginning of this trouble went back to the end of 2010 one a lot of tuareg came back from libya. The rebellion had been simmering on in this area for the previous two or three years. This really was a very serious threat to algeria. Algeria saw this as a danger because it was inevitable that tuareg would take over. The army was pretty well incapable. Algeria saw this as a major threat. The islamists the tuareg partnered with were inserted into the region from algeria. There was a big infusion of influence from the algerian secret police to mix up and mess up this whole area. They handled it very badly. That is possibly still the case. They came out of it to badly, but in many respects, they were undermined by the islamists with the backing of the algerians to the north. That problem still could come back. These are very deepseated problems. They are not very well understood by many people in the south. The algerian dimension, during last year, where the fuel came from, it came from algeria. These are issues which cannot be swept under the carpet that easily. They have to be confronted. They have to be resolved. It has been difficult because the tuareg are not homogeneous. They are there are lots of divisions amongst them. Arab populations, while these populations have lived happy together for a long time, there are tensions amongst them. It is not just a tuareg territory. The tuareg have divisions. Their leadership is weak, it is not clear who is going to represent them in any sort of talks. The rankandfile, it will not take kindly to some of the suggestions. If the new president goes in there with the military as a strongman, that could backfire very dangerously. The military is not welcome in the north. It is hopeless, it is part of the problem. Can the military make a strong showing anywhere at this point . The longer they are kept in barracks, the better. French troops in the area will be there for a wild. They can probably hold any tension or conflict. They will only be there for a few months, to be honest. Is the army goes in there in its present state, it is a rag bag army, to put it crudely, it has been badly led with the exceptions of one or two commanders, which ironically come from the north. By and large, there is a lot of ill will, a lot of bad blood between the army and the local population. A lot of mistrust and misunderstanding. Some of the areas controlled in the north by the army have seen nomadic tribes being taken away, tortured, sometimes killed. All kinds of reports about that on france 24. There is a distrust, but also a legitimate mistrust of the army because of past problems. If he is going to exert his will over this part of the country and the army is not up to it, it does not bode well, does it . I think we can not i visited the base where the European Union is training 3000 soldiers. When the first contingent of 750 soldiers finished their training period, the first thing they did is demanded to have increased pay and to be upgraded in their rank. They had to send them home for a few days until things cool down. That is an indication of the state of the army. They could not march straight when i saw them. I do not think the army will have much of a place here at all. Maybe with the french and the United Nations soldiers, they may be the ones to maintain peace. As to what they can do, i really do not know. My feeling is that the presence of the International Community is key. The presence of the International Community, international pressure, and international money. The west has a very strong interest to get this part of the world in order. You have a country that cannot be controlled by outside forces. If the army is so weak, the government is quite unstable, are they able to take control . The army is not represented doing the army is not representative of the north or the south. It is representative of the corruption that is going on in different political parties. The army is indeed very weak. It is uncontrollable. They can try to reform the army, try to put in place in army. For the time being, there is no way you can do this without international help. If the army tries to march anywhere in the north, it will be chaotic. There are efforts to bring in other ethnic groups into the army. That maybe the longterm solution. The ones who fled were in the north. They wanted to flee because the army was incapable of taking care of its own. This was an army theoretically trained by the americans. The americans did minimal training. Maybe the americans did not do a very good training. It was not very good training. When you look at this problem, we might have a map of the region. See you can understand what a vast territory this is. There we go. A lot of these tuareg and other tribes in this part of the world, they have links across borders. It is very difficult to contain them within orders, which is what the west would like to do. Algeria would like to do that. This is an extremely enormous area right now. What do you do . Do you need more regional incentives . Do you need the African Union to take more control . You need to have reasonable collaboration in order to control the borders and to define how the Different Countries can collaborate in order to secure the zone. There has been confusion, drugs going around, arms being traded. No one has been able to control it. I do not think any leader has the ability today to ensure the population that they can control the zone. The point is not about that tuareg, but about rebel groups. It is not as clearcut in this part of the world. We cannot go on troubleshooting. The french army cannot step in every time. We cannot throw billions of dollars at the problem either. Looking at a longerterm solution is quite tricky. Click the longerterm solution hast the longer tomb solution has the longerterm solution has to do with regional eventually, they will have to step in and will have to create and show that they can do that, they can have the responsibility. That will be a very long time. These are among the worlds poorest countries. They have very few resources. For the moment, neocolonialism or not, they will have to rely on the International Community and on international aid. Hopefully, the International Community has learned enough now so that it will insist on an battle against corruption and make sure the aid goes were it is supposed to go. I agree with the professor that i am not very optimistic about you and troops. About u. N. Troops. We will see what they do. We talk about the International Community. The americans and french have played a major destabilizing role throughout the entire region. Largely by backing algeria what we are seeing all around this area, we have to look at it as a region, a deteriorating situation in algeria, libya is in complete chaos. Tunisia is very fragile. Mauritania is looking a little bit more fragile with the opposition refusing to take part in elections. All around this area, we have a deteriorating situation in terms of security. For which the west must be held responsible for its overall policy in the bigger region. We cannot just look at mali. In that sense the americans, the british, and the french must take their share of the responsibility. Social media has been dealing with these stories. We have been getting some reaction from the politicians themselves . They have taken to twitter. They simply my family and myself have been to see the future president of mali to congratulate him on his victory. May god bless him. That was posted late last night. The following morning, there was a response of keita. He has yet to make a public address. He has acknowledged some photos of visits of my younger brother, he calls him. It is friendly language. Is that a little bit patronizing . Being called my younger brother . This is how society works. They Work Together and he has been his Prime Minister when he was the minister of finance. They have a history together. The point is to show although he has lost the election, he is still willing to cover it and trying to do his best. More of a friendly gesture. It has been picked up on headlines as a welcome gesture. A dignified loser saying he is he has transformed his defeat into a victory. That is probably from his own camp, i would imagine. A fine example of democracy. Very dignified. You do have some pointing to the fact that 48 hours ago, the tone was a lot less friendly with accusations of fraud and pointing the finger at sore losers. Was there some deal behind the scenes . Others are tweeting, we cannot be sure of this response, but i have seen this quoted on a number of occasions. I do not want to lets let him work. There is also this blogger who is saying, this gesture is twisting the next of those birds ordering repeating the risk. We have proven that is not the case. Michael, what do you make of this . There seems to have been a change in town. Tone. Graciously accepting he did act very graciously and i wish him all the luck in the world. If there is not a crisis, there is a problem. If they will they will act as if there is no problem. There has to be serious negotiations, serious discussions. Maybe a war of words. If this all happens like were all great guys, they are hiding the truth. I wonder how much pressure the International Community put on him to say, you have lost, we will not put up with any games. It is a question that i throw out. It is an interesting point. Very quick to congratulate the winner. He has not even spoken in public yet. It is a little bit strange for just a few hours ago, they were talking about fraud, etc. , etc. , and suddenly he goes to his house and congratulates him. I wonder what was going on behind the scenes. A be nothing. Maybe nothing. If it is in the interest of avoiding conflicts after the election, it is better than that he acted this way. With the results, he does not want to sound critical at the end. He came to realize that no matter what apparently, keita did have about 80 . This is a rapper who has been recording in new york. Everybody knows that france has been directing these elections. He is very cynical about frances involvement. There is some sort of a quid pro quo. He said what matters is stability, turning over a new leaf, and have a charismatic leader. This is a song called vote. We should be able to listen to some of it now. Democracy in mali. Thank you very much, james. Thank you, michael. Stay tuned. More news ahead on france 24. Captioned by the National Captioning Institute www. Ncicap. Org hello, and welcome back to nhk newsline. Its wednesday, august 14th. Im Catherine Kobayashi in tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister shinzo abe has skirted controversy. Hes decided not to go to a shrine in tokyo on thursday to observe the anniversary of the end of world war ii. The shrine honors japans war dead including leaders convicted of crimes after the war