Mali junta announces new constitution says will not compete in election

Mali's coup leaders announced a new constitution including a pledge to allow elections in which they would be barred from standing, even as several thousand supporters rallied in the streets of the capital Bamako on Wednesday.

The charter, which did not specify when the elections would be held, came hours after West Africa's ECOWAS bloc threatened sanctions and the use of military force to reverse last week's coup that ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure.