The Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, on Wednesday handed power to his deputy only hours after he promised to remain in charge until a new Parliament was formed. Thaksin told a cheering crowd outside his party headquarters that the first deputy prime minister and internal security minister, Chitchai Wannasathit, would take over until Parliament chose a permanent replacement.
Two Latin American countries are to stop sending troops for training to a controversial military academy in the United States. The move was welcomed by groups that have been campaigning against the academy since it was accused, in its previous incarnation, of training Latin American soldiers in illegal interrogation techniques.
Swiss teenagers sent to a centre for problem children based at a remote Spanish farmhouse were allegedly locked up in pig pens and kept on a diet of milk and muesli if they misbehaved, according to police. The case came to light after some of the children ran away and one was found at a nearby railway station.
Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee, according to a team of United States and Israeli scientists.
The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was on Wednesday forced to back down from what appeared to be an attempt to defy the law on balanced media coverage of politics. The communications watchdog, Agcom, summoned officials to an emergency session after learning Berlusconi intended to appear for two-and-a-half hours on one of his television channels.
So there’s a new mayor and political team in charge of the visdorpie. But it is about three weeks later, so someone should tell the council’s IT department. Its official website still contains the ”The Executive Mayor” page featuring none other than a beaming Nomaindia Mfeketo!
While political pressure is building on United States President George Bush to do more to stop what he calls ”genocide” in Darfur, recent events suggest that the National Islamic Front government of Sudan is not particularly concerned. One sign of the regime’s confidence was its decision to block the scheduled visit this week to Darfur by the United Nation’s chief aid official, Jan Egeland.
A Canadian teenager accused of killing a United States soldier in Afghanistan said on Wednesday he would boycott his ”war on terror” trial before a US military tribunal after he was placed in solitary confinement at the Guantánamo detention camp.
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Congolese represent the largest slice of the almost 200Â 000 applications for asylum in South Africa since 1994, with Burundians and Rwandese also prominent. Unlike other African countries, South Africa offers neither accommodation in refugee camps nor assistance to recognised refugees or new arrivals seeking asylum.