Zimbabwe are braced for their latest trial by fire in the heat of the Champions Trophy. Barring a miracle, their trip to India will be brief. The team, still sitting out Test matches, have to play the qualifying tournament with matches against Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh. Only two sides will make the latter stages.
The delayed implementation of a landmark truce between the Burundi government and the country’s last active rebel group is to kick off next week, officials said Sunday. The ceasefire deal principally calls on the insurgents to assemble in camps from where they will either be integrated into the army or police force or be demobilised.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was battling to secure the votes needed to clinch an outright victory in Sunday’s presidential election after public disgust over corrupt politics eroded his support in the final days of campaigning. Failure by Lula to win more than 50% of the vote would mean he faces a run-off against his closest rival on October 29.
People who make or sell drugs from their homes could lose the properties to the state even if they were not convicted of drug-related crime, media reports said on Monday. In a judgement on Friday, the Constitutional Court ruled that a Cape Town house used for the manufacture of drugs was forfeit to the state even though its owner was acquitted on drugs charges.
Iraqi forces placed Baghdad under a blanket curfew throughout Saturday after United States troops arrested a man suspected of plotting to attack the capital’s government compound with suicide car bombings. US troops arrested a security guard at the home of the leader of the main Sunni Arab political bloc on Friday.
Eight Palestinians were killed and dozens injured on Sunday in an increasingly violent struggle for power between rival factions in the Gaza Strip. Hours after the clashes, gunmen loyal to the Fatah movement set fire to rooms in the Palestinian Cabinet building in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The Republican leadership on Sunday stood accused of covering up the activities of a Florida congressman and champion of children’s rights alleged to have sent a sexually charged e-mail to a teenage congressional page. Senior Republican members of Congress knew for months and remained silent over the e-mail sent by House of Representatives member Mark Foley to a 16-year-old male.
Gauteng’s commuters must be encouraged to use public transport, the province’s transport minister Ignatius Jacobs said on Sunday. He acknowledged that Gauteng’s public transport system was underdeveloped, but said it was also underused.
Ducks, wasps and beetles are pioneer viticulturalist Johnathan Grieve’s insect killers of choice in his goal of creating one of South Africa’s first entirely organic wine farms. A flock of about 40 ducks patrol Avondale, Grieve’s farm in the Paarl area of the fertile Cape winelands, daily picking snails off the precious vines.
For years it was regarded as a backwater and the poor relation to its southern neighbour, but the spiralling crisis in Zimbabwe has led to a massive upsurge in Zambia’s tourism industry. A total of 650Â 000 foreign visitors travelled to Zambia last year, a rise of nearly half a million on the year 2000, bringing in vital revenue to one of the poorest countries in Africa.