Newcastle United midfielder Joey Barton was jailed on Tuesday for six months after admitting to beating up a teenager during a night out. The sentence was handed down at Liverpool Crown Court, where the 25-year-old admitted charges of affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, stemming from an early morning fight in Liverpool in December.
The prices of staple foods such as rice could stay high for the next three years, hindering the battle against poverty, a top World Bank official said on Tuesday. Food prices had risen at a ”startling” speed, giving governments and communities little time to respond, the bank’s managing director, Juan Jose Daboub, said.
A severe drought in Ethiopia threatens up to six million children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) warned on Tuesday. "Up to six million children under five years of age are living in impoverished, drought-prone districts and require continuation of urgent preventative health and nutrition interventions," Unicef said in a statement.
The police have ”concrete evidence” of a suspected third-force involvement in xenophobic attacks in and around Johannesburg, the Gauteng Legislature heard on Tuesday. ”The police now have concrete evidence of those involved in orchestrations and they are dealing with it,” said Gauteng’s minister for sport Barbara Creecy.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday defended inflation targeting as an economic management tool and hinted the government was still comfortable with a 3% to 6% percent target range for the main CPIX (consumer inflation less mortgage costs) gauge.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party on Tuesday dismissed as pure fantasy opposition claims that President Robert Mugabe’s military intelligence was plotting to assassinate opposition leadership. ”The allegations … have no foundation whatsoever,” Nathan Shamuyarira, spokesperson for the ruling Zanu-PF, was quoted by the state-run Herald as saying.
South Africa’s police and the African National Congress (ANC) intensified efforts on Tuesday to quell anti-foreigner violence that has killed at least 24 people and sent thousands of African immigrants into refugee shelters. Police have struggled for over a week to end the violent attacks on foreigners.
Fighting resumed on Tuesday in Abyei, the flashpoint oil-rich border area between north and south Sudan whose status remains contested three years after the end of civil war, aid workers said. ”It began early this morning and now it seems like the fighting has stopped,” Kouider Zerrouk, the deputy spokesperson for the United Nations mission in Sudan, said.
South African consumer foods and healthcare products group Tiger Brands plans to sell an additional 10% to black-economic empowerment (BEE) investors after the completion of the unbundling of its healthcare products unit, it said on Tuesday. "Post-unbundling, an additional broad-based equity deal of approximately 10% will be implemented," CEO Peter Matlare said.
A fading photo tossed on an empty bed is all that remains of the interrupted lives in Spinkai, a desolate Pakistani village that has endured the wrath of the army’s ”collective punishment”. In the image, a laughing young man in a jet-black turban brandishes his rifle like a trophy. Beside him stand two little girls in bright frocks, giggling with glee.