Warring factions in Côte d’Ivoire are set to take tentative steps towards peace on Thursday with voter registration trials and the beginnings of a disarmament process in the divided West African country. After numerous false starts and failed ceasefires, a process will be launched to determine who among the Côte d’Ivoire’s 16-million inhabitants will be qualified to vote.
Police shot dead at least 22 people on Wednesday in an iron-fisted crackdown against a powerful criminal gang blamed for lethal attacks in São Paulo as Brazil’s president criticised local authorities for refusing federal assistance. The clashes claimed the lives of 40 police and four members of the public, and 18 prisoners have died in prison riots blamed on the PCC gang.
Former United States vice-president Al Gore debuted his global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, on Wednesday night to a Washington audience that included members of Congress and Queen Noor of Jordan.
First, Miss America dumped Atlantic City. Now Monopoly has too. The maker of the popular board game does not plan to include Atlantic City’s Boardwalk property in a special edition scheduled to be released late this summer. Monopoly maker Hasbro confirmed its plans in a letter on Tuesday to New Jersey civic leaders, who launched a petition drive to keep the property in the new game.
Thirteen policemen were killed in two major battles in southern Afghanistan in which a Canadian soldier lost her life and nearly 60 Taliban rebels died, police and the United States-led coalition said on Thursday. One battle raged in Helmand province for several hours late on Wednesday after police stormed a district on a tip-off that Taliban fighters had gathered there.
The Canterbury Crusaders have gone for speed and the Northern Bulls for height as they finalised their squads on Thursday for this week’s Super 14 rugby semifinal in Christchurch. The only change to the Bulls side which thumped the Stormers 43-10 to scrape into the semifinals sees the return of powerful lock Bakkies Botha.
Zimbabwe’s main labour union begins on Friday a two-day meeting to decide whether to go ahead with planned mass strikes to protest against galloping inflation and grinding poverty. Zimbabweans are battling to make ends meet as the country goes through its seventh consecutive year of economic recession and astronomical inflation, which hit an all-time world record rate of 1 042,9% last week.
One of the world’s most hunted drug traffickers — whose criminal organisation compared in size to that of late drug lord Pablo Escobar — has been arrested in Brazil as part of a major international bust. Brazilian authorities said on Wednesday that Colombian-born Pablo Rayo-Montano, who had been on the run for a decade, was captured the day before at his home in São Paulo.
Most sectors of the economy are expected to be hit by a stayaway on Thursday in support of the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ jobs and poverty campaign. The one-day strike will take place countrywide, the union federation said on Wednesday.
The Republicans could face a substantial electoral defeat later this year, leaving George Bush a lame-duck president, a poll published on Wednesday suggests. The poll, for the Washington Post and ABC television, confirmed a rapid slide in support for Bush and raised hopes of a Democrat revival by putting the party ahead on all important indicators, from the economy to Iraq and immigration.