Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognises Israel’s right to exist and a negotiated two-state solution, according to Palestinian leaders. In a bitter struggle for power, Hamas is bowing to an ultimatum from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to endorse the document drawn up by Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.
A braided leather whip, a sniper rifle, six jars of fertiliser and a copy of the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook were among the presents foreign leaders have given United States President George W Bush. They are clearly trying to tell him something. The inventory of official gifts from 2004, published recently by the State Department, reads like the wish list of a paranoid survivalist.
Now that former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been flown off the continent to face charges of war crimes at The Hague, West Africans are turning their attention to another African leader who faces prosecution away from home. Ex-Chadian president Hissene Habre, who has been living in exile in Senegal since 1990.
An al-Qaeda-linked group posted a web video on Sunday showing the graphic killings of three Russian embassy workers abducted earlier this month in Iraq. The one-and-a-half-minute video, posted on an Islamic website, shows two blindfolded men beheaded and the shooting of a third man.
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David Beckham scored with a free kick in the 60th minute on Sunday to lead England to a 1-0 win over Ecuador and a spot in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Beckham sent in a curling free kick from about 25m that beat diving goalkeeper Christian Mora.
A shootout in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, on Sunday ended in what was described as a bloodbath with four police officers and eight suspects killed. An emotional Gauteng provincial Commissioner Perumal Naidoo told reporters at the scene that ”four policemen had lost their lives in the line of duty”.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will offer an amnesty to some rebel groups and call for the disarmament of militias as part of a 28-point national reconciliation plan to stem violence, a lawmaker said on Saturday. The plan, first mentioned by al-Maliki on June 6, was inspired by post-apartheid South Africa.
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday accepted his nomination by the leftist Worker’s Party (PT) to run for a second term in October elections. ”I’m here today to tell you that the dream has not ended and that hope has not died,” Lula (60) said at a national PT convention in Brasilia.
The chasm between Super 14 experience and Vodacom Cup rugby was further exposed when defending champions the Cheetahs hammered Griquas 55-14 in a one-sided opening Currie Cup encounter played in Bloemfontein on Saturday. The Cheetahs surprisingly won the Currie Cup last year.
Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene’s seventh one-day international 100 saw his side to an eight-wicket win over an outclassed England at the Riverside in Chester-le-Street on Saturday as the tourists went an unbeatable 3-0 up in the five-match NatWest Series. Jayawardene made 126 not out.