Between six and 14 members of an Iraqi family were reported dead on Tuesday after United States warplanes obliterated a house in the northern oil town of Baiji. Enraged local officials described the attack as unjustified and said it had killed an innocent family, including one member who worked for the Iraqi police.
Russian and Ukrainian officials were locked in fresh talks on Tuesday night in an attempt to resolve the energy crisis, as Russia pumped extra gas through transit pipelines to bring European supplies back to normal. Ukraine braced itself for severe shortages after Russia’s decision to cut off its natural-gas supply on Sunday.
The Israeli government is planning to give up a large slice of land to American Christian evangelicals to build a biblical theme park by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is said to have walked on water and fed 5 000 with five loaves and two fish. A consortium of Christian groups is in negotiation with the Israeli ministry of tourism.
A well-connected Republican lobbyist agreed on Tuesday to give evidence against top politicians whom he allegedly bribed, in what analysts predict may prove to be the biggest congressional scandal in American history. Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to engaging in a conspiracy involving ”corruption of public officials” as well as fraud and tax evasion.
The Iranian government has been successfully scouring Europe for the equipment needed to develop a nuclear bomb, according to the latest Western intelligence assessment of the country’s weapons programmes. Tehran is also shopping for parts for a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe, the report says.
Skipper Ricky Ponting became Australia’s third all-time leading scorer as he spearheaded his team’s fight-back in the third and final Test against South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday. Australia were 226 for seven in reply to South Africa’s 451 for nine declared at tea.
About 200 people were feared dead in a landslide triggered by heavy rains that buried scores of houses in Indonesia’s Central Java province on Wednesday, police said as rescuers scrambled to find survivors. ”We suspect there are about 200 people in 120 houses buried in the mud,” local chief of police operations Budi said.
President Robert Mugabe’s human rights record has been condemned for the first time by African leaders, significantly increasing pressure on the Zimbabwean leader to restore the rule of law and stop evicting people from their homes. The unprecedented criticism comes from the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Firefighters entered their 10th day on Tuesday evening fighting a blaze in the Franschhoek mountains above Dewdale farm. Danie Wilds, fire chief of Cape Winelands district municipality, said crews were still battling the same hot spots that have been their nemeses for the past couple of days.
Nasa’s forward-thinking Institute for Advanced Concepts, the organisation that first backed research into space elevators (think of a satellite tethered to Earth by a giant cable) has again made its annual call for revolutionary ideas lurking in the laboratories, or even just in the imagination, of United States space scientists.