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The kidnap of a pioneering American missionary on 14 October is a ‘terrible tragedy’ for the communities he served for 24 years, according to the local mayor, and it has raised security concerns among the country’s missionary community.

Jeff Woodke, 55, who worked for a branch of the US-based Youth With a Mission, was abducted by unknown assailants from the town of Abalak in northern Niger. They killed two guards and he was taken to eastern Mali where Mujao – a radical Islamic group – have a stronghold.

Around 15 million Australians voted in the Federal election held on 2 July.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had called for a double dissolution election, so seats in both the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the upper house, the Senate, were up for grabs. After winning a landslide in the 2013 Federal election, Turnbull’s conservative Liberal-National Party Coalition government was expected to win comfortably.