The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Friday called for urgent humanitarian assistance for the Horn of Africa region where recent droughts and ongoing conflicts have left millions facing possible famine. More than 11-million people in Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are in need of aid, the FAO said in a special alert issued in Rome.
Nigeria plans to free about 25 000 inmates, many of whom have been awaiting trial for years, in a bid to decongest overcrowded and unhygienic prisons and improve its human rights record. "The issue of awaiting-trial inmates has become an endemic problem in Nigeria," said Justice Minister Bayo Ojo.
Zimbabwe’s ability to fulfil its Test programme against the West Indies looks increasingly in doubt because of an ongoing strike by players demanding the dismissal of the country’s two leading cricket officials. The 37 striking cricketers are holding out for the removal of Zimbabwe Cricket chairperson Peter Chingoka and managing director Osias Bvute, who are accused of dubious financial dealings.
The leader of Britain’s second opposition party was fighting for his political life on Friday after an unprecedented admission that he has been battling alcoholism, at a time of fierce wider public debate over the use and abuse of alcohol. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy (46) had repeatedly denied health problems despite some eyebrow-raising public appearances and media rumours.
South Africa has improved its score on the Heritage Foundation’s 2006 Index of Economic Freedom from 2,83 to 2,74, although globally its position has slipped slightly from 48th in 2005 to 50th. For the sub-Saharan African region, Botswana has the freest economy, with a score of 2,29 and an overall global ranking of 30.
The number of shack dwellings in South Africa rose from 1,45-million in 1996 to 2,14-million in 2003, according to Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu. That was 417 new shacks a day on average between 2001 and 2003 and 210 shacks per day on average in the five years between 1996 and 2001.
Eighty-one residents of Ezibeleni near Queenstown were to appear in the local magistrate’s court on Friday following an outbreak of vigilante action in which buildings were torched and one person died. They would face charges of public violence, murder, attempted murder and assault, police said.
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini on Friday expressed his ”most sincere gratitude” to his Yemeni counterpart at the release of five Italian hostages who had been held by Yemeni tribesmen. ”This experience can only reinforce the ties of friendship that have traditionally united Italy and Yemen,” he said.
Ariel Sharon was only 25 when he first attracted attention and controversy — and at the very highest level. It was October 1953, and the young army officer was summoned by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s then prime minister. Lieutenant Sharon had just commanded a raid against a West Bank village called Qibya, a reprisal for the murder of an Israeli woman and two children.
Staff from the Windows on the World restaurant, which was at the top of one of the World Trade Centre towers, were on Thursday night celebrating a new start with the opening of Colors in Manhattan’s East Village. Colors is owned and staffed by former Windows employees who lost 73 colleagues in the 9/11 attacks.