A bicycle bomb detonated in a market in the Turkish port of Izmir on Saturday, injuring 12 people, two of them seriously, police said. The blast came one day before a planned anti-government rally in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, amid rising political tensions ahead of a July general election
Visiting Pope Benedict XVI’s pronouncements in favour of sexual abstinence and against abortion are falling on deaf ears in Brazil, whose government hands out free condoms to schoolboys as part of a drive to curb HIV/Aids and teenage pregnancy.
Chevron temporarily shut down some operations in Nigeria’s offshore waters on Friday as the second-largest United States oil company scrambled to protect its workers and equipment from rampant violence that threatens to drive up fuel prices.
A majority of countries on the World Bank board believe Paul Wolfowitz should resign as president of the World Bank, bank board sources from rich and developing nations said on Friday. ”It is now very clear that a majority of members think Mr Wolfowitz must resign,” said one board source from a developing country.
Yemen said on Friday it has recalled its ambassadors from both Libya and Iran for consultations over the two countries’ purported backing of Shi’ite rebels fighting against government forces. In recent months, heavy fighting has flared up again between the rebels and government troops in Saada province in the northern mountains on the Saudi border.
Bernard Gordon, a screenwriter blacklisted during Hollywood’s anti-communist crusade in the 1950s, has died. He was 88. Gordon died on May 11 at his Hollywood Hills home after a long battle with cancer, according to his daughter, Ellen Gordon. ”He was highly principled, scrupulously honest,” his daughter said. ”He could argue anybody under the table.”
Award-winning Tsotsi actor Presley Chweneyagae’s ex-girlfriend has launched a court action against the star to force him to pay maintenance for their seven-month-old son, media reports said on Friday. Nobelungu Somfula said that Chweneyagae had not met his son and had only made two payments of R500.
A Cape High Court judge involved in a defamation lawsuit that could sink his own judge president has been reported to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), media reports said on Saturday. Judge Siraj Desai has been reported to the JSC by the Pan-Africanist Congress chairperson in Gauteng, Thami ka Plaatjie, who claimed Desai did not have the ”impeccable character” needed in a judge.
Billions of dollars’ worth of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for, possibly having been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, the New York Times said on Saturday. The discrepancy was valued between -million and -million daily, using a per barrel average, the report said.
A bead of sweat is visible through the eyehole of his famous black balaclava. Latin America’s most celebrated living rebel must be feeling the heat, but a glass of water would mean taking off the mask and that is out of the question. He makes do with a puff on his pipe, and a subject that is close to his heart.