No image available
/ 25 May 2008

US hails cricket fan’s novel that met 9/11 challenge

It is a subject that has engaged some of the biggest names in international letters: Don DeLillo in Falling Man, Ian McEwan in Saturday and Jonathan Safran Foer in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Each attempted to explain in imaginary terms that great reordering of western life, which happened on 9/11 when New York’s Twin Towers were destroyed by al-Qaeda terrorists.

No image available
/ 22 May 2008

‘We are going to liberate Somalia’

The senior leader of Somalia’s Islamist opposition vowed on Wednesday to expel United States-backed Ethiopian troops by force and create an Islamic republic in the war-torn country. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who led Somalia’s Islamic Courts movement, said Mogadishu’s Western-backed Transitional Federal Government was run by ”traitors”.

No image available
/ 17 May 2008

Kuwait’s shifting sands

Over lavish buffets in giant, air-conditioned tents whose generators battle with the searing summer heat, Kuwaitis have been arguing over an election that is being watched for signs that one of the freest countries in the Arab world is disillusioned with its political system.

No image available
/ 12 May 2008

US court allows apartheid lawsuit to proceed

The United States Supreme Court said on Monday that it cannot intervene in an important dispute over the rights of apartheid victims to sue US corporations in US courts because four of the nine justices had to sit out the case over apparent conflicts. The result is that a lawsuit accusing some prominent companies of violating international law will go forward.

No image available
/ 10 May 2008

Big guns roll through Red Square once more

Seventeen years have gone by since T-90 tanks last rolled across the historic cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square. But on Friday they were back — with an unmistakable diesel-fumed roar — and trundling past Lenin’s tomb and the fantastic domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. Led by a rather tubby general holding a sword, Russia held its annual Victory Day parade.

No image available
/ 25 April 2008

Zim riot police raid MDC headquarters

Armed riot police raided the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Friday and detained scores of people, officials said. Dozens of riot police detained about 100 MDC supporters who were bundled into a crowded police bus before being taken away, a witness said.

No image available
/ 22 April 2008

Zim arms ship ‘not in SA waters’

A Chinese ship carrying a shipment of arms and ammunition destined for Zimbabwe was not in South African territorial waters, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said on Monday in reaction to a claim that the An Yue Jiang was ”passing through South Africa’s territorial waters” in violation of a court order.

No image available
/ 17 April 2008

G8 business chiefs spar over climate change

World business chiefs gathered in Tokyo on Thursday to discuss ways to tackle global warming as transatlantic tensions emerged over how far industry should go to reduce emissions. The heads of the business federations of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations agreed that climate change needs serious attention.

No image available
/ 15 April 2008

Day of bloodshed shakes Iraq

A series of bombings blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq tore through market areas in Baghdad and outside the capital on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people and shattering weeks of relative calm in Sunni-dominated areas. The bloodshed struck directly at United States claims that the insurgents’ power is waning.

No image available
/ 7 April 2008

Bush fails to sell missile-defence plans

United States President George Bush’s attempts to patch up the US’s battered relationship with Russia failed on Sunday when Vladimir Putin said he continued to oppose the US’s European missile defence plans. Bush and Putin held talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. It was their last encounter before Putin steps down as president.

No image available
/ 3 April 2008

Paulson says China market reforms to continue

China is too far down the road toward a market economy to turn back from reforms now, even if United States financial market turmoil is causing it some qualms, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Thursday. Paulson told reporters the biggest threat to continued reforms came from firms in China that want to be protected against competition.

No image available
/ 22 March 2008

Richardson backs Obama in blow to Clinton

Senator Barack Obama won a coveted endorsement from fellow Democrat Bill Richardson on Friday as the State Department apologized for snooping into his passport files and those of his two main White House rivals. The decision by the Hispanic governor of New Mexico is a victory for Obama and could improve the Illinois Democrat’s chances of winning over Latino voters.

No image available
/ 22 March 2008

Amid the grimness, a sense of change

The sprawling prison complex at Guantánamo Bay looks from a distance like many of the hastily built resorts round the Caribbean, the camps occupying a narrow strip of sand by the palm-lined sea-shore, with fencing to keep the locals out. But through the military checkpoint, the grimness of the world’s most infamous prison becomes apparent.

No image available
/ 21 March 2008

Obama’s passport records improperly accessed

Contract workers for the United States State Department improperly viewed Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama’s passport records three times this year in what his campaign called ”an outrageous breach” of his privacy. The incidents, which occurred on January 9, February 21 and March 14, were quickly reported to lower-level State Department officials.

No image available
/ 8 March 2008

US recession fears rise on more job cuts

United States employers unexpectedly cut jobs in February at the steepest rate in nearly five years, a second straight month of employment losses that heightened fears the world’s largest economy has skidded into recession. ”The question appears no longer to be are we going into a recession but how long and deep it will be,” said economist Joel Naroff.

No image available
/ 4 March 2008

China says defence budget to rise, warns Taiwan

China will raise its heavily scrutinised defence spending by nearly a fifth this year, a top official said on Tuesday, warning self-ruled Taiwan that Beijing would ”tolerate no division”. Jiang Enzhu, spokesperson for China’s National People’s Congress, or Parliament, stressed that China adhered to a path of peaceful development.

No image available
/ 4 March 2008

Report: US plotted to overthrow Hamas

The Bush administration, caught out by the rise of Hamas, embarked on a secret project for the armed overthrow of the Islamist government in Gaza, it emerged on Monday. Vanity Fair reports in its April edition that President George Bush signed off on a plan for the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to remove the Hamas authorities in Gaza.

No image available
/ 29 February 2008

Hezbollah says US warship threatens regional stability

The pro-Iranian Hezbollah group accused the United States on Friday of endangering regional stability by deploying a warship off Lebanon and vowed to defy what it called an act of military intimidation. Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, leads a Lebanese opposition locked in a 15-month-old power struggle with the Western-backed governing coalition.