The Hamas-led Palestinian government accused Israeli leader Ehud Olmert on Wednesday of having no interest in negotiating a peace settlement, despite his pledge to meet Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. On Tuesday Olmert said that he would seek to set the final borders of Israel on a unilateral basis only after exhausting negotiation efforts.
Amelie Mauresmo goes into the French Open as top seed for the first time, but her hopes of finally banishing the demons that have haunted her at Roland Garros are endangered by a new and unexpected threat. Twelve months ago, no-one would have given credence to the idea that former tennis queen Martina Hingis could still win the one Grand Slam title that has eluded her.
Thirty-two men — including South Africans, an American and a Nigerian — have been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a reported coup plot, news reports said on Wednesday. The South African Department of Foreign Affairs said it is trying to get comprehensive information on the incident.
Folk singer Joan Baez and tree-sitter Julia ”Butterfly” Hill have taken up residence in a tree to raise awareness about a 5,7ha urban farm threatened with demolition. Hill lived in a redwood in Northern California for more than two years to prevent loggers from cutting it down.
Janet Kettman says she and her neighbours on Sunset Circle are always looking over their shoulders in fear the stalker will strike again. ”He attacks from the back,” Kettman said on Monday. ”You never see it coming. He has six toes on every foot, which constitutes a very formidable weapon.”
Limited human-to-human transmission of bird flu may have occurred in an Indonesian family that lost seven members to the virus, but there was no evidence it had mutated into an easily transmissible form, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
Microsoft on Tuesday released new test versions of what company co-founder Bill Gates called its three most important products: Windows Vista for desktop computers, Windows for servers and the Office business software suite. The new beta products were unveiled at Microsoft’s annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference.
More than 100 people were feared dead on Wednesday as searchers recovered corpses from a sea of mud spawned by flash floods in northern Thailand, local officials said. Among the heaviest-hit areas was Lablae district of Uttaradit province, where dozens of houses were engulfed in mud.
Japan has finally emerged from the ”lost decade” of deflation and is set to continue on a path of robust growth, weathering an expected end to zero interest rates, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday. ”Japan has now exited from the period of deflation,” said the deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific department.
Rebel leaders controlling half of the West African state of Côte d’Ivoire said on Tuesday their forces have begun pulling back from sections of the front line as agreed under an ongoing peace process. The military council of the New Forces rebels said earlier on Tuesday it is committed to ”applying peace accords in full”.