Up to 10-million people on five continents are expected to demonstrate against the probable war in Iraq on Saturday, in some of the largest peace marches ever known.

A new and dangerous flashpoint with Iraq emerged last night when weapons specialists called in by the UN arms inspectors judged Iraq’s main missile system to be illegal and said they should probably be destroyed.

On a strategic hilltop, high above the rusted tank carcasses and bombed-out bunkers of Iraq’s last ruinous war, a portly army officer trains a wary eye south to Kuwait, and the US forces massing for invasion.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, can be tried for genocide in Belgium once he has left office, the Belgian appeal court ruled last night.

Zimbabwe has turned to China for help in restoring its agricultural productivity after two years of land seizures which are largely blamed for causing a famine now threatening more than seven-million people.

Death confronts the staff and patients at Ikhaya Lobomi, a hospice in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, almost every day. But in this spectacular part of South Africa even death brings no relief from the grinding poverty.

South Africa’s world number three Ernie Els is a strong favourite to win the ,68-million Johnnie Walker Classic starting on Thursday.

Kenya’s prospects of a World Cup upset at the North West Stadium on Wednesday seemed remote after the east Africans were bowled out for 140 by South Africa in a Pool B match.

Canadian captain, Joseph Harris, said that his team of immigrant amateurs — the side has representatives from nine countries — had targeted Bangladesh as one of two World Cup opponents that they could compete with on reasonably even terms.