The price of bread in Zimbabwe has gone up from Z$85 000 (84 US cents) to Z$130 000 ($1,28) for a standard loaf, with bakeries blaming the increase on the unavailability of flour and the rise in fuel prices, the state-owned <i>Herald</i> newspaper reported on Tuesday.
There’s not many bowlers in the world who can take eight wickets in an innings and have that performance rated only somewhere among their top 10. On Monday it looked as though Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan might become only the third bowler in cricket history to take all 10 wickets in an innings — after former England spinner Jim Laker and India legspinner Anil Kumble.
About 200 hooligans ordered to hand over their passports by May 30 have failed to do so, the British Home Office announced on Monday. The order was given to stop known troublemakers heading to Germany for the World Cup but several have ignored the order.
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Ghana are not afraid to play Italy or their other Group E opponents at the World Cup after receiving a boost with the return of midfielder Michael Essien. The West Africans, making their first World Cup appearance in Germany, were buoyed by Sunday’s 3-1 warm-up victory over South Korea.
The United Nations Security Council has arrived in Sudan with assurances that the UN has no intention of taking over the country and sees the government as a partner in promoting peace. The government has been very reluctant to allow a UN peacekeeping force to take over from the 7 000-strong African Union force now in conflict-wracked Darfur.
The diamond industry has promised much but done little to end the illegal trade in so-called blood diamonds, which fund wars in Africa, the British non-governmental organisation Global Witness said on Monday. Elements of the diamond industry ”continue to trade in conflict and illicit diamonds, while the rest of the industry turns a blind eye,” it said.
Islamic fundamentalists whose ideology is similar to the Taliban seized control of Somalia’s capital on Monday, unifying the city for the first time in more than a decade and posing a direct challenge to a fledging United Nations-backed government.
A vast tract of the Atlantic seabed more than 320km off shore is being claimed by a coalition of four European countries eager to expand their oil and gas prospecting rights. The joint submission to the United Nations by France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom is based on a novel legal approach that is transforming the international politics of underwater prospecting.
A theme hotel built around the brand of a lads’ mag might strike the more refined traveller as somehow tacky. But context is everything: the new Maxim Hotel and Casino, costing ,2-billion, will open in Las Vegas, where no hotel worthy of the name does not boast a replica of the Great Temple of Ramses.
African investment received a shot in the arm with the launch of the Investment Climate Facility (ICF) for Africa, at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town recently. The forum also heard South African President Thabo Mbeki extend his theme of the ”Age of Hope”.