Senior Zimbabwean opposition member Roy Bennett fears persecution from Zimbabwean state agents even while in South Africa waiting to appeal against his asylum rejection, he said in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The former Movement for Democratic Change MP fled to South Africa in March after being implicated in an arms find in Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Malaysia is exploring plans to build the first Disney theme park in Southeast Asia, a government minister said on Tuesday. Effendi Norwawi, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of economic affairs, said the government is in talks with Disneyland operators to establish a theme park in the southern state of Johor, near Singapore.
United States President George Bush rallied on Monday to the victory of his closest ally in Latin America, the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, after he won a landslide second election on Sunday. Bush called Uribe to congratulate him on a victory that gives the US some relief from a political tilt to the left in South America that has brought a string of anti-American leaders to power.
All Black flanker Chris Masoe took a financial hit on Tuesday to add to his embarrassment after a scuffle in which reportedly he burst into tears when team-mate Tana Umaga hit him with a woman’s handbag. The New Zealand Rugby Union fined Masoe 910 and found him guilty of hitting a man in a Christchurch bar early on Sunday morning.
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Asia is buzzing with World Cup fever and nowhere more than in pubs and clubs, which are poised for a bonanza from hordes of football fans watching the games, drink in hand, on big screen TVs. The excitement has not escaped staid Singapore, where nightlife venues in the tiny island-state are extending opening hours and ramping up promotions.
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England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson fears his World Cup squad will be distracted over the media obsession with Wayne Rooney’s broken foot. Eriksson is still confident the Manchester United striker will play some part in the World Cup, but he has requested his next CT scan be brought forward seven days to June 7.
An early morning traffic accident in Kabul involving a United States military vehicle rapidly degenerated on Monday into the worst upheaval in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban, as angry protesters burned vehicles and buildings, ransacked shops and aid agencies and hurled rocks and invective at American soldiers.
Daewoo Group founder Kim Woo-Choong was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for fraud and embezzlement relating to the collapse of the firm under heavy debts. The Seoul Central District Court said Kim, aged 69 and in poor health, was also ordered to repay 21,4-trillion won ($22,5-billion dollars) in restitution, along with a fine of 10-million won.
The World Health Organisation on Tuesday accused the global tobacco industry of continuing to use misleading labels to lure millions of people, including children, to take up smoking. On the eve of World No Tobacco Day, WHO said it would focus on the "tobacco industry’s lies" and the great variety of deadly tobacco products.
Townsville Golf Club president Terry Walsh thought golfers reporting crocodiles on the course were hallucinating — until he saw them himself. "For the last two years, the people I play golf with have been saying there were crocs on the course and I thought they were on drugs," Walsh told the Australian Associated Press in the tropical northern city.