Hundreds of American soldiers swept through Falluja yesterday in a further, apparently more precise, operation against guerrilla resistance. Eight men were arrested.

The inclusion of a white contestant in a pan-African version of the television show Big Brother has ignited a heated debate about who can call themselves an African.

The fate of Israel’s offer to make its most significant military withdrawal since the beginning of the intifada hung in the balance last night as the Palestinians demanded an end to the assassination of members of Hamas and other militants while Ariel Sharon said they could go on.

In the Liberian town of Redemption last week the bodies of the dead littered the main street. Aid workers with Médecins Sans Frontières described a smell of death hanging over the town.

An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist.

Disgraced in presidential office but redeemed in retirement as one of America’s most popular politicians, Bill Clinton appears set to run for the only appointment that New Yorkers really care about — the mayor of their own city.

The entire human resources department staff at the National Prosecuting Authority was suspended on Wednesday for allegedly creating ghost workers, and pocketing their pay.

Hamas’s senior political leader, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, yesterday punctured any US hopes of ending a spiral of tit-for-tat attacks in which 60 Israelis and Palestinians have lost their lives, declaring that Hamas would redouble its war on Israel.