Malawi is deepening trade and investment ties with China as part of a larger strategy to diversify its agriculture-dominated economy and increase its bargaining power in the international tobacco market, the country’s trade minister said late on Thursday.
Fifteen potential sites for new ”eco-towns” across England have been published in a drive to tackle a national housing shortage while minimising damage to the environment. Each site would provide between 5 000 and 15 000 low carbon emission homes in the first new towns since the 1960s.
Investment group LonZim plans to spend -million buying Zimbabwean assets this year as interest in the once-wealthy nation reawakens in the twilight of President Robert Mugabe’s rule. An end to Mugabe’s rule could make the once-wealthy nation appealing again, foreign investors say.
Opportunities to reach an FA Cup final do not come around often, especially for the likes of Portsmouth, West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City and Barnsley, who will be battling out this weekend’s semifinals at Wembley. It is the first time since 1908 that only one team from the top flight have reached the semifinals.
Want to have a go at building you own eco-city of the future? London’s Science Museum is offering visitors the chance to do just that in a new exhibition. The Science of Survival show offers visitors a trip through the problems climate change poses and an array of options for rising to that challenge.
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu on Wednesday proposed sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe in the wake of the unresolved presidential elections. Tutu told the BBC he favoured ”a mixed force of Africans and others” to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country.
Max Mosley, president of world motorsport’s governing body (FIA), claimed on Tuesday that he had been the victim of a covert surveillance operation orchestrated by unknown enemies of his so as to force him to resign his post. However, the 67-year-old son of pre-World War II British fascist leader Oswald Mosley insisted that he would not step down.
Pay-per-view funerals go live online in Britain on Tuesday, allowing mourners who cannot attend services in person to pay their last respects via the internet. Despite criticism of the scheme as macabre, the company who launched the service, Wesley Music, is planning to offer it to crematoria across the country.
Arsenal will be hoping the fear factor outweighs Liverpool’s vast European experience when the two sides cross swords in an all-English Champions League quarterfinal on Wednesday. Rafael Benitez has guided his side to two out of the last three finals of Europe’s elite competition, but he will also be aware that, on the domestic front, Arsenal have had the edge.
The coroner hearing an inquest into the death of Britain’s Princess Diana in a car crash said on Monday there was no evidence that her former father-in-law, the Duke of Edinburgh, had ”ordered Diana’s execution”. Diana died in a crash in 1997 along with Dodi al-Fayed, whose father, Mohamed al-Fayed, has accused Queen Elizabeth’s husband of being behind her death.
The 29-year-old British sprinter, who served a two-year ban for doping, would hold a news conference on Monday, the club said on its website. ”Obviously we are well aware of Dwain’s background and we gave the whole situation a great deal of thought,” Castleford’s football manager, Michael Robinson, said.
Kevin Keegan insists Premier League safety hasn’t yet been secured despite watching rampant Newcastle United dismantle Tottenham Hotspur 4-1. Keegan’s free-flowing side moved back into mid-table and nine points clear of trouble as they capitalised on a shambolic defensive display from the League Cup holders to run out emphatic winners.
The National Civil Rights Museum sits in what was the Lorraine Motel, just beyond the shadows of Memphis’s skyscrapers and the garish neon glow of Beale Street — the main drag made famous by the likes of BB King and James Baldwin. The first words of the first exhibit state: ”Protest against injustice is deeply rooted in the African-American experience.”
Baggage handling chaos at London Heathrow’s new Terminal Five (T5) is likely to cost British Airways up to £25-million (,7-million), analysts at Citibank said on Monday. Nearly 250 flights have been cancelled since Thursday’s troubled opening of the ,6-billion showcase terminal.
You can write much of the script for London 2012 already: the tube strikes, the cost over-runs, the security computers that won’t work and the Kazakh weightlifters lost in Terminal Five. But the real problem for the Olympic games we thought we wanted to host is beginning to emerge from the smog over Beijing.
Max Mosley, president of motorsports’ governing body FIA, is under pressure after a British tabloid reported on Sunday that he engaged in sex acts with prostitutes that involved Nazi role- playing. The News of the World reported that Mosley (67) paid five sex workers £2 500 in cash and then engaged in an orgy that lasted almost five hours.
Chelsea kept their Premier League title hopes alive with a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough on Sunday but their performance would have caused few alarms for leaders Manchester United. Ricardo Carvalho’s well-placed header inside the opening six minutes at Stamford Bridge proved sufficient for Avram Grant’s side to close the gap to five points.
British Airways drafted in extra staff on Sunday to shift 15 000 items of baggage built up since the disastrous opening of its showcase terminal at London’s Heathrow Airport. With nearly 250 flights cancelled since Thursday’s opening of the ,6-billion Terminal Five (T5) and more cancellations due in coming days, the airline could not say when matters would return to normal.
In the end, it was the pictures of Carla Bruni photogenically snogging President Sarkozy on a boat on the River Thames, during their state visit, that made me wish they’d both just clear off back to France, Bruni presumably bobbing gently homewards on a sea of male British drool.
Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has married again in a secret ceremony in Gibraltar, according to a London Sunday newspaper. Thatcher (54) married Sarah Russell (42) after a three-year courtship, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The Sydney Opera House to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge went dark as people switched off lights in their homes and skylines dimmed around the world on Saturday to show concern with global warming. Up to 30-million people were expected to have turned off their lights for 60 minutes by the time ”Earth Hour” — which started in Suva in Fiji — completed its cycle westward.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s son shrugged off Equatorial Guinea’s attempts to have him arrested for his alleged role in a plot to overthrow the country, according to a newspaper report on Saturday. The West African country has issued a warrant for Mark Thatcher’s arrest for his role in helping to finance and organise a coup plot.
British Airways cancelled more than a 100 flights over the weekend following a chaotic opening of its new ,6-billion terminal at London’s Heathrow airport. It said it had cut 66 short-haul and European flights on Saturday and would cancel 37 more on Sunday after Terminal Five’s (T5) grand opening on Thursday descended into chaos.
British Airways cancelled a fifth of flights from its new ,6-billion terminal five (T5) at Heathrow on Friday as the chaos from its shambolic opening spilled into a second day. The airline said it was dropping the short-haul flights to ”create more capacity” as it tried to get back on top of the mess left by Thursday’s opening.
The opening day of Heathrow airport’s new Terminal Five descended into chaos on Thursday, with flights cancelled, baggage delayed and long queues, while protesters rallied against further expansion. British Airways, the only airline using Terminal Five, was forced to cancel 34 flights and apologise for "teething problems".
Gold, oil, diamonds, metals: commodities have been booming. But as prices hit record highs, is the bubble about to burst? Turmoil in financial markets has, some analysts say, pushed prices well above fair market value across energy, metals and agricultural goods as investors take flight to supposed ”safe plays”.
Shareholders of British media group Reuters voted in favour of a takeover by Canadian peer Thomson Corporation, the London-based company said in a statement on Wednesday. "Reuters shareholders vote in favour of acquisition by the Thomson Corporation," the company said in a brief statement to the London Stock Exchange.
A Scottish cleaner who won a record bingo jackpot over the Easter weekend said she would return to work as normal on Tuesday. Soraya Lowell (38) won the national jackpot of £1 167 795 (,3-million) at a bingo hall in Coatbridge, north Lanarkshire.
Oil edged down on Tuesday for the fourth straight day, relinquishing earlier gains, as fresh concerns about weaker demand in top oil consumer the United States tempted some players to cash in. US crude was down 66 cents to ,20 a barrel by 14.40am GMT, off the day’s high of ,60.
Signs of life in the United States housing market combined with JPMorgan’s higher bid for Bear Stearns to push global equity markets up sharply on Tuesday, and sent corporate debt demand soaring. The dollar remained weak, however, while eurozone government bond prices took a hefty hit as equities rose.
Four hundred people were trapped on the London Eye for more than an hour while engineers fixed a mechanical fault, a spokesperson for the riverside tourist attraction said on Tuesday. Sightseers were suspended up to 135m above the ground on Monday night as workmen repaired one of the four huge tyres that turn the observation wheel.
Manchester United beat old rivals Liverpool 3-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday as the reigning champions were left five points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But it was Chelsea who became United’s nearest challengers after a double from Didier Drogba saw them come from a goal behind to beat Arsenal 2-1.