JEFF FRANKS AND JACK REDDEN, Washington/Islamabad | Tuesday US PRESIDENT George W Bush moved on Monday to freeze the assets of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the September 11 aerial assaults on America, while Russia offered to aid any US military operations in Afghanistan by funneling arms to anti-government forces. Russian President Vladimir […]

Washington | Wednesday THE International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday it had barred Zimbabwe from IMF loans or use of its general resources as the country’s overdue payments mount. The IMF executive board ”declared Zimbabwe ineligible to use the general resources of the IMF and removed Zimbabwe from the list of countries eligible to borrow […]

THE candidate for Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party won a by-election to fill the seat left vacant after the death of war veterans leader Chenjerai Hunzvi. Bernard Makokove of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) defeated the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) Oswald Ndanga by 15 570 votes to 5 207, state television […]

THE national secretary of Zambia’s Ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), Michael Sata, resigned from the party on Monday, four days after he quit his top ministerial position. “He tendered his resignation from the party this afternoon,” said his representative Eddie Lifwekelo. According to Lifwekelo, Sata resigned from the party in protest against the manner […]

THE permanent secretary for mines and energy, Retired Colonel Christian Katsande, has been banned from attending a summit in the United States – becoming the first victim of travel restrictions being implemented by the United States government against President Robert Mugabe and his officials. The US has also deferred a training programme that had been […]

AUTHORITIES of Lome University have hiked entrance fees almost ten-fold for the 2001-2002 academic year, an official in the Togolese capital of Lome said on Monday. He said the annual fees had been raised from 5 270 CFA francs (seven dollars), set in 1970, to 50 000 CFA francs ($69). There was no immediate reaction […]

SEVEN people, including tourists from the French island of Reunion, were killed on Monday when the light aircraft they were flying in crashed near the airport of Madagascar’s capital, pilots said. The Navajo PA 31 plane was approaching Antananarivo when the pilot reported problems first in one engine, then in the second, and subsequently crashed […]