An undersea earthquake rattled Indonesia’s Aceh province on Friday, sparking panic among residents, although there was no tsunami warning or immediate reports of damage and casualties. The 5,9-magnitude quake struck at 3.02pm local time and was centred about 70km south-west of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.
Nigeria’s president-elect, Umaru Yar’Adua, intends to tackle violence in the oil-producing Niger Delta by initiating dialogue with militants when he assumes office after disputed elections, he told the media on Thursday. Yar’Adua said he would get to work immediately on solving the crisis in the lawless delta in southern Nigeria.
France’s right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy was embroiled in a free-speech row on Friday after a defeated candidate accused him of stifling a televised election debate. Francois Bayrou said Sarkozy had subverted basic democratic freedoms of free speech by using contacts to pull the plug on Saturday’s scheduled debate.
Zimbabwe’s central bank on Thursday introduced a new foreign-currency bond to raise money to tackle a serious drought threatening the country, but turned down demands for a general devaluation of the local currency. In an emergency policy statement, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono also offered new price incentives for tobacco and gold producers.
Estonia spirited away the controversial statue of a Red Army Soviet soldier from the centre of the capital, Tallinn, in the early hours on Friday after violent riots against its removal in which one man was killed. Russia reacted furiously to the move and its upper House of Parliament voted to ask President Vladimir Putin to sever relations with the small Baltic state.
China hit back on Friday at Taiwan’s refusal to admit the Olympic torch, saying the island’s Olympic Committee had reneged on an earlier agreement to let the relay pass through. Beijing, host of the 2008 Summer Games, unveiled the torch relay schedule on Thursday and included self-governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own, as the stop before Hong Kong.
India has urged Iran to honour a -billion natural-gas sales deal concluded two years ago, warning Tehran it could lose credibility if it went back on the agreement, a report said on Friday. The message was conveyed to Iran’s leadership during an unscheduled visit to Tehran on Thursday by Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Dutch shareholder rights group VEB said on Friday it filed a suit attempting to prevent ABN Amro from selling its United States arm, LaSalle Bank, to Bank of America Corporation for -billion. VEB chief Peter de Vries said the LaSalle sale was an attempt by ABN Amro to foil a possibly higher hostile takeover offer.
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Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya and Australian paceman Glenn McGrath will be playing their last World Cup match on Saturday. The pair have been looking at their best, with left-handed opener Jayasuriya, a survivor of the 1996 World Cup-winning team, showing off his big-hitting in the early overs and McGrath displaying his disciplined pace and subtle variations.
Legendary Russian cellist and emblem of resistance to the Soviet system Mstislav Rostropovich died on April 27, his spokesperson said. He was 80. "He died in hospital today," Natalya Dolezhal said. Rostropovich had been ill for some time and had been receiving treatment at a Moscow cancer clinic.