The president of Ethiopia’s remote Afar region on Wednesday denied Eritrean accusations that local separatist rebels were responsible for abducting a British embassy group there for almost a fortnight. ”There are no rebel movements operating in the Afar region. Our soldiers monitor the area daily,” Ismail Ali Sero told Agence France-Presse by telephone.
Somalia’s prime minister appealed on Wednesday for ,6-million to fund a national reconciliation meeting in Mogadishu and said the next two weeks would prove if it could secure the violent capital in time. Eight people died on Tuesday when a barrage of mortar bombs launched by suspected Islamic insurgents struck the city’s presidential palace.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP expressed concern on Wednesday about reports that international terrorists might be in South Africa. ”The IFP is alarmed at reports that suggest we might be harbouring international terror suspects, with links to Afghanistan, Iraq and al-Qaeda, without our knowledge,” the IFP’s John Bhengu said.
South Africa has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a police officer, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said on Wednesday. Party spokesperson Velaphi Ndlovu said the emotional damage the job causes was shown in the increased number of police-officer suicides in the second half of last year, he said in a statement.
Iran’s president voiced defiance on Wednesday as world powers prepared to put the finishing touches to new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, saying his country would not surrender. His tough language was echoed by another senior official, who said mastering the nuclear fuel cycle was a ”red line” from which Iran would never retreat.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was in intensive care with a broken skull on Wednesday following what he says was a brutal police attack while in custody, his spokesperson said. ”He has just had a brain scan because his skull is cracked,” said spokesperson William Bango.
A large, green moving truck is parked at the MTN Sciencentre in Canal Walk shopping centre in Cape Town. The movers’ mission: science on the move. Their destination: the yearly Sasol SciFest in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. An ancient glider, a chariot, and superbly crafted astronomical instruments are on the payload.
North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator has snubbed the chief United Nations nuclear inspector by claiming he was too busy to meet him during the International Atomic Energy Agency’s first trip to Pyongyang since being thrown out of the country four years ago.
An independent review of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) operations in Africa says the lender’s work is confused, vague, lacks transparency and suffers from a large gap between rhetoric and practice. "The fund should be clearer and more candid about what it has undertaken to do," says the report.
South Africa launched a revamped national Aids plan on Wednesday as new research showed the high cost of government inaction on the epidemic — 1Â 500 South Africans are infected with HIV every day. South Africa’s national strategic plan aims to cut new HIV infections by 50% and bring treatment and support to at least 80% of HIV-positive people by 2011.