The African Union on Friday rejected calls by Britain and the United States to intervene in Zimbabwe, where the president, Robert Mugabe, is conducting a slum clearance programme that has left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Marat Safin’s latest attempt to conquer Wimbledon ended in bitter disappointment and frustration on Friday when he was knocked out in the third round by Spanish serve-and-volleyer Felciano Lopez. The fifth-seeded Russian meekly surrendered the Court One tie to the man who beat him at the Olympics last year.
Saddam Hussein’s family will publish next week a novel written by the ousted Iraqi leader before the US-led war on Iraq, his daughter said on Friday. Ekhroj minha ya mal’un, whose title could be translated into ”Get out, damned one” is a metaphor for a Zionist-Christian plot against Arabs and Muslims.
All Chinese-run websites that fail to register with telecommunications authorities before June 30 will be temporarily closed down, state media said on Friday. The announcement was made on Friday by the Ministry of Information Industry in a bid ”to control domestic internet information services,” the Xinhua news agency said.
Just days after being acquitted on child sex charges, Michael Jackson faced fresh legal woes on Thursday: he is being sued by a woman who claims she was attacked by a dog that escaped from a home he owns. A husky called Flash, who lives at Jackson’s family home in Los Angeles, allegedly bit a woman in Apil.
Despite the vast changes that have occurred since 1994, the us-them narratives have remained comfortable laagers to understand and engage with the world, writes Mike van Graan.
A string of car bombings in quick succession killed at least 17 people in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad, as two top United States officials insisted the insurgency was under pressure. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari on Thursday opened a high-profile visit to Washington aimed at soothing US worries about the war.
New deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was sworn into office at Parliament on Thursday along with the new minister of minerals and energy and two deputy trade and industry ministers. Mlambo-Ngcuka said she was still ”clearly in shock” but very grateful for President Thabo Mbeki’s vote of confidence in her.
The success of land reform in Malawi will depend on the cooperation of traditional leaders who remain sceptical of the process because they believe the new legislation will erode their authority, said civil society leader William Chadza. Chiefs in Malawi have traditionally had the authority to allocate land to their subjects.
South African gold mining group DRDGold confirmed on Friday that a class action lawsuit had been filed in the United States against the company, its chief executive and chief financial officer. The lawsuit alleges that the company made certain false and misleading statements between October 23 2003 and February 24 2005.