Zimbabwe has poured cold water on the idea of the United Nations helping to solve its economic and political problems, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. ”I am unaware of any UN intervention on Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is not a UN issue,” Secretary for Information and Publicity George Charamba told the paper.
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David Beckham is no longer England’s main man. The 31-year-old midfielder — known as much for his glamorous lifestyle, fashion sense and tattoos as for his bending free kicks — has been eclipsed as England’s key player. Wayne Rooney, still recovering from a broken foot, is the player England’s opponents fear most.
A report this week that South African Football Association (Safa) technical committee chairperson Sturu Pasiya held face-to-face talks with Portugal and former Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari on the issue of Bafana Bafana coach for the 2010 World Cup was on Wednesday described as a ”pie in the sky”.
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If the soccer gets boring at the World Cup, watch out for the secret signals between the match officials running the game. Over the years referees have developed discreet ways of passing or receiving messages, often involving the assistants helping out the man in the middle when he or she may not have seen an incident.
Anug Shah is a happy man. He makes bed nets at his factory in Tanzania and business is booming. Production at the A to Z Textiles plant has increased tenfold in the past 18 months and a new factory is needed for a further trebling of output by the end of the year. The workforce of 3 200 — 90% of them women — will double.
The town of Black Jack, Missouri, got its name from the variety of oak tree that once grew nearby. It is the kind of place where family is valued — just as long as the family in question meets certain criteria. Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving’s family, it seems, do not.
French police were on Wednesday questioning five men after burglars pumped sleeping gas into the home of the footballer Patrick Vieira, sedating his family before stealing jewellery and a car. Gas was pumped in through the air-conditioning system to knock out the family and keep them asleep.
Worried that the lights could go out, European Union chiefs will press President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to agree new rules on future Russian oil and gas supplies, pricing and investment. But Moscow is in no mood to haggle. It has already rejected a proposed international energy charter.
The White House on Wednesday ruled out previously authorised direct talks between Tehran and the United States ambassador in Baghdad, which were to have focused on the situation in Iraq. The move marks a hardening of the Bush administration’s position, despite pressure from the international community to enter into direct dialogue with Iran.
Rescue dogs and 1 000 soldiers searched for bodies on Thursday under a sea of mud and debris in Thailand’s flood-hit north, following flash floods this week believed to have killed more than 100 people. The public health ministry reported 51 people dead and 87 missing from the flooding that began on Monday.