Ethiopia: Ruling party to elect Meles' successor

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s ruling party is holding a meeting in the capital to elect a chairman to succeed the late prime minister Meles Zenawi.

Meles, 57, died on August 20 of an unknown illness. The person elected to succeed him in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front will almost automatically become prime minister, because the ruling party holds an overwhelming majority in parliament.