Zimbabwe has paid another -million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the country tries to clear its debt arrears with the international lender, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. In early September, Zimbabwe made a surprise payment of -million to the IMF.
About 50 000 nomads in Ethiopia’s Afar region were displaced as a result of last week’s eruption of a volcano, officials there said on Monday. Mount Arteale, about 1 000km north-east of Addis Ababa, erupted on September 26 after an earthquake measuring 5,5 on the Richter scale.
The United States has circulated a resolution calling on United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia to arrest former Liberian president Charles Taylor if he returns home and hand him over to the war-crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone for prosecution. Taylor was given asylum in Nigeria after giving up the presidency in August 2003.
Test strugglers Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have both turned down an offer by Kenya to play them in a one-day international, claiming their national sides needed a break, local officials said on Monday. Kenya are keen to play top-quality opposition ahead of this month’s International Cricket Council International Cup semifinals in Namibia.
Former Manchester United football star George Best, who has battled alcoholism since quitting the game, was in a ”serious” condition in intensive care at a London hospital on Monday, his doctor said. Best (59) was admitted to the private Cromwell hospital in central London on Saturday with influenza-like symptoms.
The mayor apologised to the bereaved on Tuesday after a stampede by fans hoping to attend a music concert left 11 dead and injured 98 in the South Korean town of Sangju. Police questioned 22 people about the accident, including five city officials, said Kim Yong-tae, the officer heading the investigating team.
Two men have been detained for questioning over the suicide bombings at three crowded restaurants on Indonesia’s Bali island, police said on Tuesday. Indonesian officials earlier said the near-simultaneous bombings that killed 22 people and apparently were planned by two Malaysians — still at large.
A former snowboard champion turned sports cameraman and a friend were convicted by a French court on Monday for making a video in which pornographic images were flash-cut into a DVD production about snowboarding. "I did it as a laugh, but it was a bad joke," Julien Joud told the court in the eastern French city of Grenoble.
The editor of Zimbabwe’s only private daily has been suspended, according to a report posted on the website of the state-run broadcaster late on Monday. Ibbo Mandaza, the founder, chief executive and editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, has been suspended with immediate effect, the report said.
The sex-crimes trial of Pretoria advocates Dirk Prinsloo and Cezanne Visser resumes in the city’s high court on Tuesday after a six-month break. The hearing is expected to kick off with evidence from officials of a children’s home from where the couple is alleged to have collected minor girls who were subsequently abused.