Zambia’s government has issued a warrant for the arrest of a British writer who was ordered to quit the country for ”insulting” President Levy Mwanawasa in his weekly newspaper column. ”All security agents in the country have been ordered to look for Roy Clarke and immediately detain him pending his deportation,” a senior police officer said.
Why a British expat is being deported
The Democratic Alliance’s ”report card” was getting worse by the year and it showed signs of desperation from the opposition, the City of Johannesburg said on Wednesday. DA leader in Johannesburg Mike Moriarty said most services in the city had deteriorated and the billing system was chaotic.
A Kinshasa court has sentenced three journalists and six employees of state television in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to a year in jail for defamation and calumny. Each was also ordered to pay damages of 500 to Kikaya, said rights group Journalists in Danger.
A German human rights group on Wednesday demanded an official apology from Berlin for the ”genocide” of native people when Namibia was a German colony. The Society of Threatened Peoples (GfbV) said Berlin bore direct responsibility for 75 000 people who died in Namibia a century ago during the suppression of rebellions against German rule.
The International Monetary Fund last night warned that the gaping US budget deficit, ballooning trade imbalance and falling dollar were posing a serious threat to the health of the global economy.
Climate change over the next 50 years is expected to drive a quarter of land animals and plants into extinction, according to the first comprehensive study into the effect of higher temperatures on the natural world. The scale of the disaster facing the planet shocked those involved in the research. They estimate that more than one million species will be lost by 2050.
Mustaq, a teenager who was trying to start a pashmina shawl business in Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir, disappeared one night in July 2001. Three days later his body was found dumped in a park not far from his family’s home.
The man accused of murdering the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, has confessed to stabbing her in a ”random” attack, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Prosecutors said they would now move to formally charge Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Serbian origin, as early as next week, and to have him put on trial soon afterwards.
Sudanese government and rebel leaders on Wednesday signed a deal to share the oil-exporting country’s growing wealth, marking signs of an end to one of Africa’s longest civil wars of modern times. With only two issues remaining after months of talks under Kenyan mediation, diplomats believe a complete peace package will be agreed in the next two weeks.
The new year has begun with a small but significant contribution to the fight against Aids, which is devastating Sub-Saharan Africa. A $2,15-million grant has been made by Japan to help Zimbabwe and Swaziland prevent the disease from spreading amongst their youth.