Amid chaotic scenes in a Cairo court, the main opposition candidate in Egypt’s forthcoming presidential election went on trial on Tuesday accused of forgery. Ayman Nour, leader of the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, has faced constant harassment since declaring his intention to run for the presidency and says the charges are trumped up.
A teenage boy being groomed by China to become the new Tibetan religious leader has been allowed to meet tens of thousands of people in a rare trip, state media said on Wednesday. The visit was the first by the teenager to Sichuan, where the second largest population of Tibetans live, outside of the restive Tibet region.
Talks aimed at unblocking the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire entered a second day on Wednesday in Pretoria with leaders drafting a document that was to be adopted later in the day. The Pretoria accord ran into a major hurdle this week when rebel forces made clear they would not abide by the June 27 deadline to disarm.
Pakistan’s highest court delivered a legal victory on Tuesday to a woman who has accused 13 men of orchestrating her gang rape three years ago. The supreme court overturned the acquittals of some of the men and ordered all of them to be rearrested.
The Norwegian who became a hacker hero for developing software to crack DVD encryption has posted a program to break the lock on Google’s brand-new video viewer. Jon Lech Johansen’s latest program was posted on his ”So sue me” website on Tuesday. That was just one day after Google launched free software allowing users to watch videos.
Production of cannabis, the most commonly used street drug in the world, has jumped by around 25% in one year, the United Nations said in a report Wednesday. An estimated 161-million people used cannabis in 2003, equivalent to four percent of the global population between the ages of 15 and 64.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s protection service has demanded that Moscow authorities remove the advertising banners that hang across road routes in the centre of the city, complaining that they ”complicate” the task of protecting the president, Izvestiya newspaper said on Wednesday.
Trade union the United Association of South Africa (UASA) has rejected a wage offer made by the Chamber of Mines, the organisation said on Wednesday. The 2,5% across the board salary adjustment was seen as ”totally inadequate”. The selective adjustment to living out allowance and the additional one percent contribution by employers towards risk benefit was seen as discriminatory.
Weighing in at 6,24kg, Delaney Jessica Buzzell isn’t your average newborn. Her parents have even dubbed her the ”Big Enchilada.” The baby headed home on Tuesday after being delivered by Caesarean section on June 23 — a surprising three weeks early.
New research by the Britain’s Medical Research Council has shown that routinely immunising infants against the haemophilus influenzae type b (HIB) bacteria has virtually eliminated HIB in Gambia. HIB is the bacteria that causes pneumonia and meningitis.