United States military helicopters airlifted stranded families to safety and aid agencies distributed vital food after devastating floods in Afghanistan left nearly 200 people dead, officials said on Monday. Torrents of melting snow and fierce rains caused rivers to burst their banks in many parts of the poverty-stricken country.
in could be hip-hop’s first Asian-American star — if racism doesn’t stop him. ”For the most part people think I’m like a myth, not a real person,” he says. He talks to Dorian Lynskey in New York.
President-elect Hifikepunye Pohamba was sworn in on Monday as Namibia’s second president since independence, succeeding veteran leader Sam Nujoma who held power in the Southern African country for 15 years. Pohamba took the oath to uphold the Constitution before 20 000 people assembled at a stadium in Windhoek.
At least 34 people were killed and more than 500 injured by a tropical storm that flattened more than 3Â 000 houses in northern Bangladesh. ”The death figures will go up as we cannot start full-scale search operations because of the rough weather,” police chief Bhanu Lal Das said on Monday.
Dr Donatella Lippi calls it a ”terrible problem”. She and other researchers who have spent the past 10 months prising open the tombs of one of Europe’s most illustrious families, the Medicis of Florence, have got more than they bargained for. They have found the remains of eight children they cannot place on the family tree.
Shocked residents of KwaZulu-Natal’s Mandawe village were trying to help police on Monday track down the murderers of a grandmother and her five grandchildren, who were burnt beyond recognition. ”At first, everybody was too shocked to speak but now they are trying to help us,” said police spokesperson Captain Tienkie van Vuuren.
Zambia’s Vice-President, Lupando Mwape, is threatening to quit his party over alleged acts of corruption and bribery to win votes ahead of the ruling party’s convention, state radio said on Monday. He said senior party figures have been engaging in corruption and bribery to win support ahead of the party convention.
The South African Communist Party has called on the country’s major financial institutions to stop discriminating against workers living with HIV/Aids and the poor. The party said the question that needs to be asked on Human Rights Day is: ”How far have we come, in 50 years, to realise the aspirations expressed in the clauses of the Freedom Charter?”
A demonstration on Sunday to commemorate the second anniversary of the war on Iraq turned into a vocal stand-off between hundreds of supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It was the first appearance by pro-Mubarak demonstrators in months of anti-government protests.
Rescuers searched on Monday for survivors of a powerful earthquake in southern Japan that killed one woman, injured hundreds and caused several thousand people to flee their homes. More than 100 aftershocks were felt after Sunday’s earthquake, which measured seven on the Richter scale.