Côte d’Ivoire: to delay poll to 2009, official says

Ivory Coast's long-awaited presidential election, which will cement peace between President Laurent Gbagbo and rebels, is "technically impossible" this year and will be held in 2009, an electoral official said on Friday. The vote in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer, which had already been delayed several times since 2005 by political conflict and sporadic violence, was scheduled for Nov. 30.