Senegal’s highest court confirmed President Abdoulaye Wade’s landslide re-election in last month’s elections on Sunday, throwing out an appeal by the main opposition over alleged irregularities. ”Candidate Abdoulaye Wade is first with 1 914 403 votes, representing 55,90% of valid votes,” said Ndeye Magatte Mbengue, chief clerk of the Constitutional Court.
Officially no one is a candidate and there is not even a campaign, but in reality the contest to become the next South African president is well under way ahead of a crucial vote in December. The African National Congress (ANC) meets at the end of year to choose the person expected to lead the party into the 2009 general elections.
Armed Zimbabwe riot police sealed off a stadium on Sunday to block an opposition prayer meeting that officials have banned, calling it a political protest against President Robert Mugabe. Teams of police officers, many of them armed with shotguns and tear-gas canisters, patrolled around the stadium in the Harare township of Highfield.
Zimbabwe’s long-ruling President Robert Mugabe said in an interview on Sunday that he intends to stand in the country’s next presidential elections if they are held as scheduled in 2008. ”If the party says so, I will stand,” the Southern Times, co-published by New Era in Windhoek and Zimbabwe Newspapers in Harare, quoted Mugabe as saying.
At least 58 people were killed in a spate of attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including 31 Shi’ite pilgrims who died in a car bombing as they returned from a religious festival, security officials said. The car bomb exploded as pilgrims arrived in several vehicles at Baghdad’s downtown Karrada district from Karbala in central Iraq.
China’s Liang Wenon-Chg parred the 18th hole to beat Malaysia’s Iain Steel on the first hole of a sudden-death play-off to win the joint-sanctioned Singapore Masters on Sunday. The 28-year-old Liang’s maiden victory outside China ensured he became the second Chinese player to win on the European Tour, emulating Zhang Lian-wei, who captured the same event in 2003.
A gay couple who only tied the knot in January look set to become the first same-sex partners to divorce in South Africa after one of them moved in with another man. Theatre director Richard Thornton (52) told the <i>Sunday Times</i> that he had filed for divorce from 20-year-old Andries Jacobs on the grounds of desertion and irreconcilable differences.
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After an emergency hotel evacuation and a dispute over unsafe pitches, South Africa cricket coach Mickey Arthur must be wondering what else can go wrong. Helped by Australia’s five-match losing streak, South Africa became the top-ranked limited-overs team by routing Pakistan 4-0 last month.
The United States army is lagging behind Iraq’s insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago. In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan ”as smart, agile and cunning”.
Blue-helmeted riot police cordoned off roads leading to a Zimbabwean township early Sunday where an opposition prayer rally was due to take place. Riot police in open-topped trucks milled around the area. A coalition of churches and civic groups has called a prayer rally in Highfield suburb despite a ban on political meetings.