Burkina Faso and Niger have announced they will exchange 18 towns in order to settle a long-running border dispute and end years of litigation. Burkina Faso is to gain 14 towns and Niger will receive four between now and the end of 2016 when the drawing of the boundary is complete, Kouara Apiou Kabore, the permanent secretary of the Burkina Faso National Border Commission said this week. Niger and Burkina Faso, which were French colonies prior to independence in 1960, share a frontier of about 1,000 kilometers, about a third of which has been mapped out on the ground.