A barrage of Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Friday, wounding at least 19 people, medics said. Rockets also hit several other northern towns. One missile hit an apartment building in Haifa. Sirens sounded shortly before the rockets struck.
Hundreds of people were dead or missing in North Korea after floods and landslides caused by heavy rains destroyed tens of thousands of houses and buildings, official media said on Friday. The rains, brought by a powerful typhoon which lashed the Korean peninsula on July 10, also damaged infrastructure and wrecked vast swathes of farmland.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was expected to make his first appearance in a Hague courtroom on Friday for a hearing aimed at paving the way for his war-crimes trial. The former warlord faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Brazil’s tarnished crown jewel of aviation Varig fell to a United States-Brazilian investor group for a knockdown $24-million — saving the once-proud national carrier from liquidation. The new owner announced an immediate "temporary" halt to all 25 international and national flights except those between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Iraqi authorities extended a daytime curfew on Baghdad on Friday in an apparent effort to prevent violence after one of the bloodiest weeks this year. State television announced a four-hour traffic ban in force every Friday of late to curb car bomb attacks on mosques during weekly prayers would be extended through most of the day.
A stern warning from the All Blacks has put the struggling Springboks under pressure to produce a massive improvement in their Tri-Nations Test in Wellington on Saturday to save the Southern hemisphere rugby championship from turning into a lopsided debacle.
Zimbabwe has resumed land allocations after they were halted by a corruption audit of the process, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Friday. Its website said Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe announced this at the opening the 2006 annual chiefs’ conference in Kariba on Thursday.
For some time now I have been struggling to keep my spirits up, stay focussed on the positive and live in the state of coruscating optimism that any balanced citizen should be feeling about contemporary life. "Just look around you," said a friend, "and you’ll see there’s no real reason for anyone to feel edgy or depressed.
Ethiopian troops were moving closer to the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday amid fears of all-out war in the volatile Horn of Africa nation where Islamists have risen to power. Ethiopian soldiers were moving beyond the provincial seat of the interim Somali government in Baidoa to the towns of Buur Hakaba and Baledogle.
Kaizer Chiefs were handed a gift-wrapped second crack against Manchester United in the Vodacom Challenge series by virtue of a 2-0 victory over a lacklustre Orlando Pirates at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Rustenburg on Thursday night.