No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Zimbabwe is trying to persuade close ally China to help construct houses for more than a million people in need, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo told the head of a visiting Chinese delegation that providing housing in Zimbabwe’s towns and cities was his government’s biggest challenge, reported the Herald daily.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
A Port Elizabeth man was expected to appear in the Uitenhage Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday following a hostage drama in Despatch, Eastern Cape police said. The man, in his 40s, allegedly locked a woman in his house at Azilia Park about 11am on Monday, said spokesperson Inspector Marianette Olivier. The man panicked when he saw police vehicles and neighbours gathering around the house and started shooting at bystanders.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik beat Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in a tie-break game on Friday to become the first world chess champion recognised by rival chess bodies for more than a decade, RIA news agency reported. Kramnik won the final tie-break game out of four to win the championship, being held in Russia in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
South Africa’s Presley Chweneyagae has won the award for an outstanding performance by an actor in a leading role for Tsotsi at the Black Movie Awards in Los Angeles, News24 reported on Monday. Chweneyagae was up against Denzel Washington (Inside Man), Cuba Gooding Junior (Shadowboxer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Kinky Boots) and Tyrese Gibson (Waist Deep).
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
A train on Rome’s underground metro system rammed into the back of another at high speed on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 110 others, five seriously, authorities said. Earlier, officials had said two people had been killed. The difference was apparently due to confusion at the scene.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Freddy Fender, the ”Bebop Kid” of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad Before the Next Teardrop Falls, died on October 14. He was 69. Fender, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 2006, died at noon at his Corpus Christi home with his family at his bedside, said Ron Rogers, a family spokesperson.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, who directed the black-and-white classic The Battle of Algiers, died in Rome on October 12, hospital officials said. He was 86. Pontecorvo died at the Polyclinic Gemelli hospital, said hospital spokesperson Nicola Cerbino. The cause of the death was not given, but reports said he had suffered a heart attack months ago.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Former United States Republican Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early on October 14 at the Boston Medical Centre, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said. Studds fell unconscious on October 3 because of what doctors later determined was a blood clot in his lung, Dean Hara said.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
Lin Mu, regarded by Chinese liberal intellectuals as one of the nation’s pro-democracy pioneers, died suddenly at his home at the age of 79, his family said on Monday. His son said Lin, the former secretary of liberal Chinese leader Hu Yaobang, went for a nap on Sunday morning after reporting feeling unwell and never woke up.
No image available
/ 17 October 2006
North Korea denounced United Nations sanctions on Tuesday as a declaration of war, while across the border in Seoul an official said there were signs the reclusive Communist state may be preparing for a second nuclear test. Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before and so was hardly likely to yield now that it had become ”a nuclear weapons state”.