After eight months detained in Japan awaiting deportation to the United States, the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer may soon be free, his supporters claimed on Tuesday. Fischer (62) on Tuesday, was held last July when trying to leave Japan for the Philippines on an invalid passport which had been revoked by the US.
Iran’s love of goldfish as a table-top symbol of good luck costs the lives of five million of the creatures every year, a press report said on Wednesday. From March to early April, when Iranians celebrate Norooz — New Year in the Persian calendar — millions of the small fish are bred in unsanitary pools and transferred in buckets and tanks to the big cities.
Sudan needs almost -billion for reconstruction and development over the next two years to recover from two decades of north-south civil war, an assessment team said on Wednesday. The team, made up of representatives from the Khartoum government and the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, said ,8-billion, would be required until 2007.
Japanese police have found the mummified body of a 107-year-old man, who died up to a decade ago, wearing a clean kimono at his house near Osaka, an official said on Wednesday. An official with the Itami city hall said the city is considering asking the man’s family to return gifts it has received since 1999 as a token of the man’s longevity.
Two people were killed and nine were reported missing in Algerian floods this week following heavy rain in the Sahara, according to reports on Wednesday. About 70 travellers were trapped when wadis (valleys) suddenly flooded in the downpours on Sunday and Monday and had to be rescued by army helicoters, newspapers reported.
Nigeria’s House of Representatives has called on the government to halt further repayments on the country’s staggering -billion in external debts. The motion, approved by the Lower House, said the debt burden is a brake on social and economic development, and the amount owed continues to increase because of accrued interest.
Twenty-five primary-school children died on Wednesday from apparent food poisoning in the central Philippine province of Bohol, officials said. The students from the San Jose Elementary School in the town of Mabini had eaten snacks made from cassava roots in their mid-morning break before falling ill, officials said.
Media, entertainment and leisure holding group Johnnic Holdings has named acting chief and financial director Christine Ramon its CEO with immediate effect, the group announced on Wednesday. Meanwhile, at the general meeting of shareholders held on Wednesday, Johnnic shareholders approved the unbundling of Johncom.
Bill Clinton is to have another operation to remove scar tissue and fluid from his left chest, following on from his quadruple bypass surgery in September, his office said on Tuesday. The statement said that the procedure was a ”recognised, occasional consequence of open heart surgery”, and carried a low risk.
Once it was the mighty Jordan river, a crossroads of civilisations and continents, and a favourite of pilgrims seeking baptism in its waters. Now just about the only thing that flows for large parts of the year, keeping the river alive, is sewage. Decades of competition for water have turned the lower Jordan river, running between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, into little more than a drainage ditch.