Foreign

French couple, children's bodies fly home
WINDHOEK -- A French couple wounded in a gun attack by suspected Unita rebels in northeastern Namibia in which their three children were murdered were repatriated aboard a private medical flight yesterday, a hospital spokesman said. Claude and Br...

Benetton on death row
CLOTHING GIANT Benetton is joining Italy's offensive against the death penalty with its latest advertising campaign -- piercing portraits of real-life American death-row inmates. The posters, which will hit billboards worldwide at the end of Janu...

Top Tibetan religious leader flees to India
DHARAMSALA, India -- The escape of one of Tibetan Buddhism's top spiritual leaders from Chinese-ruled Tibet to India has left New Delhi and the Tibetan government in exile here tip-toeing on thin diplomatic ice. Since the shock arrival on Wednesd...

Sub-Saharan Africa 'to lead world economy'
LONDON -- Sub-Saharan Africa, with Mozambique leading, is set to be the world's fastest-growing region this year, according to the annual analysis by the respected Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). It forecasts that the world will be richer than...

Zeta Jones signs no-cash deal with Douglas
WELSH ACTRESS Catherine Zeta Jones will sign a pre-nuptial agreement before wedding US star Michael Douglas to protect his massive fortune, the British newspaper The Sun reported. The deal, which will allow Douglas to keep his wealth should the ...

AI report on DRC atrocities
LAUSANNE Switzerland -- Amnesty International (AI) early today issued a new report condemning "a violent campaign of repression" in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). "All forms of dissent, be they real or supposed, are severely repressed by...

Elvis' gospel recordings on new double CD
THERE'S ONE dream the king of rock 'n' roll never realised. "His dream from childhood until I last saw him 11 months before he died was to be a gospel singer," said Donnie Sumner, who toured with Elvis Presley during the 1970s. "He never felt l...

IRA 'plans symbolic gesture'
LONDON -- The Irish Republican Army plans to destroy a small number of arms as a "symbolic gesture" in an effort to head off any move by the Ulster Unionists to abandon the peace process, a report in the London-based Sunday Telegraph said. The re...

Nike assures its football jerseys not toxic
LONDON -- Sports goods manufacturer Nike insisted on Friday there was no evidence that some of its British-made football jerseys were laced with toxic chemicals. It appealed for calm. Fears were raised after a German investigative television prog...

City of Porto celebrates millennium 8 days late
NEW YEAR celebrations finally went ahead on Saturday night in Porto, northern Portugal, eight days after technical problems postponed the city's New Year's Eve fireworks display. Mayor Nuno Cardoso decided to convert the weekend of Twelfth Night ...

Renamo to join Moz parliament
MAPUTO -- A decision by Mozambique's main opposition Renamo to take up seats in the country's newly elected parliament, overturning an earlier boycott call, has sparked hopes that a looming crisis will be averted. Analysts say the decision to bac...

Illegal rudder may sink US cup challenge
AUCKLAND -- America's Cup veteran Dennis Conner has been found guilty of using an illegal rudder on his yacht Stars and Stripes and may be stripped of points in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series. Any loss of points would seriously harm the...

Thailand cracks down on pirated Anna and the King videos
TWO PEOPLE have been arrested and could face long prison terms for possession of 400 pirated video compact disks of Anna and The King, the film banned here last month in the belief it denigrates Thailand's revered monarchy, Thai police said. Jinj...

US repatriates 246 Chinese
BEIJING -- The United States has repatriated 246 stowaways to China, in a bid to stem the flow of people making the hazardous, expensive and illegal journey to the West, officials said yesterday. The US put the stowaways on a plane to China's Fuj...

Cubans in Zambian hospitals
LUSAKA -- Cuban doctors have begun work at major hospitals in Zambia to relieve exhausted senior doctors handling emergency cases in the absence of their sacked junior counterparts, spokesman Nsama Sikazwe said yesterday. "We are now tired. There...

Zim SPCA fights smuggling
HARARE -- The Zimbabwean Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has appealed to the Geneva-based Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to help stamp out smuggling of wild parrots from the Democratic Republic of ...