Twenty-four people are now known to have died in the collapse of a four-storey residential building in the Nigerian commercial capital, Lagos, the Nigeria Red Cross said on Thursday. ”Three bodies were pulled out today [Thursday], while one injured person died in the hospital last night [Wednesday],” said Red Cross disaster officer Umar Maigira.
Horn of Africa power Ethiopia said on Thursday it was tracking military movements by Somalia’s newly powerful Islamists and would ”crush” any attack on President Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government. ”We will use all means at our disposal to crush the Islamist group if they attempt to attack Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal government,” said Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu.
The conservative Afrikaner enclave of Orania in the Northern Cape is to launch two support groups abroad, a spokesperson said on Thursday. Eleanor Lombard said an Orania member in The Netherlands, Koos Kooy, recently registered an association called the Buitelandse Vriende van Orania (Friends of Orania Abroad).
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stares defiantly from posters in Burj al-Barajneh but residents say the Hezbollah leader was safely elsewhere when Israeli jets bombed the southern Beirut suburb aiming to kill him. The Israeli military said dozens of warplanes dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on Wednesday night at a site where it said intelligence showed senior Hezbollah leaders were sheltering in a bunker.
The president of Russian oil company Yukos, Steven Theede, announced his resignation on Thursday, saying that a court-appointed bankruptcy observer had recommended liquidation of the business. ”I am notifying you of my resignation as president. There is now nothing more to be accomplished by me that could benefit the company in a material way,” Theede said.
Paul Scholes insists Manchester United must mount a serious challenge for the Premiership title this season after admitting that the club have waited too long to secure domestic dominance. Scholes (31) is currently proving his fitness on United’s tour of South Africa after missing five months of last season with a blurred-vision problem affecting his right eye.
Iran said on Thursday it was determined to produce nuclear fuel on its territory in defiance of international calls to halt the work, and accused the United States of trying to prevent a negotiated solution to its dispute with the West. ”Based on law, Iran has planned to produce 20 000MW of nuclear electricity in the next 20 years,” chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said.
The findings of a government probe into alleged offences by Zimbabwe’s trade union federation have been handed to the police, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. Its website said Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche informed the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions of the move on Wednesday.
The African National Congress has condemned the killing of two police officers in Langa, Cape Town, on Wednesday, and called on anyone with information to come forward so that justice can be done. ”We hope the perpetrators of this crime will be brought to book and be removed from society,” ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha said on Thursday.
Australia’s second-most capped Test prop forward Bill Young on Thursday announced his retirement from rugby. Young (32), who made 46 international appearances after making his Test debut against France in Paris in 2000, has been troubled by a chronic neck injury this year.