Fifteen potential sites for new "eco-towns" across England have been published in a drive to tackle a national housing shortage while minimising damage to the environment. Each site would provide between 5 000 and 15 000 low carbon emission homes in the first new towns since the 1960s.
Prospects for a run-off in Zimbabwe's election appeared to increase on Wednesday after state media said President Robert Mugabe had failed to win a majority for the first time in nearly three decades. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, however, insisted on Tuesday that he would win an outright majority from last Saturday's election.
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu on Wednesday proposed sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe in the wake of the unresolved presidential elections. Tutu told the BBC he favoured "a mixed force of Africans and others" to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country.
Zimbabwe's opposition was in contact with senior military and intelligence officials on Tuesday night to persuade them to respect the results of the election as pressure grew on Robert Mugabe, the President, to recognise defeat. Sources in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said the contacts were aimed at winning the security establishment's support.
Scores of detainees were injured on Saturday when a six-storey police building collapsed in the Angolan capital Luanda. Angolan police chief Ambrosio de Lemos said the cause of the collapse of the National Criminal Investigation Department building was so far unknown but no "external factor" was involved.
