Bayern Munich admit they are resigned to losing Germany captain Michael Ballack to Chelsea at the end of the season. Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho revealed on Monday that the west Londoners had made Ballack, out of contract at the end of the season, a lucrative offer and Bayern general manager Uli Hoeness conceded defeat.
Zimbabwe faces a shortfall of 1,1-million tonnes of the national staple maize this year, the United States-based food-monitoring Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet) said. Fewsnet said the southern African country is most likely to harvest 700 000 tonnes of maize for the 2005/2006 farming season.
The state of Zimbabwe has withdrawn charges against an opposition MP and two party officials, arrested over an arms cache linked to a plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, and freed the three, their lawyer said on Wednesday. ”Giles Mutseyekwa and two other accused had their case withdrawn before plea.”
South African Airways (SAA) is one step closer to officially becoming a member of the global airline network, Star Alliance. One of SAA’s Airbus A340-600s has been branded in Star Alliance promotional livery. The Star Alliance livery, painted across the body of the aircraft, took SAA Technical staff a total of four days to complete.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is sure a UN human rights council would be able to work with the United States, even if the US were to vote against its being established. Annan was speaking after meeting former president Nelson Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
![]()
The Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille became Cape Town’s new mayor on Wednesday after a council meeting, held to elect a mayor, a speaker as well as other portfolios. Making multiparty democracy succeed in Cape Town will be a huge challenge, Zille said in her acceptance speech.
Nigerian separatist rebels threatened to step up their attacks on foreign-owned oil facilities on Wednesday after dashing hopes that their three Western hostages would soon be released. A spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta confirmed in a statement that the hostages had been split up and warned of imminent raids across the region.
Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, on Wednesday denied involvement in mass reprisals ordered against a village after the ousted Iraqi leader escaped assassination there in 1982. ”I arrested no one, it was the security services that were in charge” of operations in Dujail, Barzan said as the trial of Saddam and seven co-accused resumed before the Iraqi high tribunal.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday reported massive bird deaths in two regions in Eritrea, two weeks after it warned that the Horn of African nation was at risk of bird flu infection. WHO representative Andrew Kosia said that wild fowl had died in the coastal area of the Red Sea region and several chickens had died in the western region of Gash Barka.
Slobodan Milosevic will be buried in Belgrade, his lawyer announced on Tuesday night, ending days of speculation about what would happen to the remains of the former Serbian president. The dictator’s body will be flown from Amsterdam airport to the Serbian capital at about lunchtime on Wednesday, allowing what supporters called a ”dignified” funeral to take place.