For years, they were banned from working, forbidden from the classroom and forced to wear the tent-like burqa whenever they left home. This weekend, Kabul’s women were given back the freedom to get behind the wheel of a car after a decade-long ban on women driving.

England’s cricketers are to issue a public statement on Monday highlighting their growing ”concern on moral grounds” about the crisis in Zimbabwe where they are due to play next month.

Ivory Coast’s main political parties and rebel groups reached unanimous agreement early yesterday on a peace plan aimed at ending a four-month civil war that has left hundreds dead and displaced up to a million more.

The United Nations’ nuclear inspectors will deliver a serious blow on Monday to Washington’s case for going to war with Iraq, telling the world they have found nothing and giving Saddam Hussein good grades for cooperation.

Chinese police were puzzling yesterday over the case of two foreigners, presumed to be stowaways, who plunged to their death as an Air France Boeing 777 came in to land at Shanghai’s Pudong international airport.

Burundian President Pierre Buyoya will not leave Bujumbura for the peace talks scheduled to start in Pretoria on Sunday until he knows that rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza is on his way. The ceasefire signed on December 2 has not eliminated the mistrust between these old rivals.

A very senior Iraqi military man had fallen out of favour, hadn’t been sycophantic enough, had dared to disagree with Saddam Hussein. He’d been locked up for months. Eventually his wife appealled in person to the great liberator.