Foreign

Saddam's reign ends as Tikrit falls
TIKRIT -- US tanks and troops seized Saddam Hussein's last power base here yesterday, signalling the war is nearing its end as the focus began to switch to rebuilding Iraq and installing a new leadership after 24 years of the dictator's iron-fiste...

Powell steps up pressure on Damascus
GOOD NEWS IN ARABIC: An unidentified US marine distributes newspapers to Iraqis in al Qurna. The daily Arabic language broadsheet newspaper, which is being produced by coalition forces, featured a large picture of Saddam Hussein's statue in Bagh...

N Korea 'thaws' to talks after fall of Saddam
SEOUL -- The United States' destruction of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime may have induced North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il to the negotiating table to resolve the country's nuclear crisis, officials said yesterday. A cautious statement f...

Apartheid: chemical firms may be sued
LONDON -- US chemical giants DuPont and Lilly and Germany's Bayer could face lawsuits from apartheid victims over the sale of harmful chemicals to the former South African government, Britain's Financial Times daily reported yesterday. The three ...

Suicide bomber's helpers sentenced
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli military court yesterday sentenced four Palestinians found guilty of organising last year's Passover suicide bombing in Netanya to 29 life sentences each, with some judges arguing they should have received the death penalty...

Catholic bishops denounce Mugabe govt
HARARE -- Zimbabwe's Catholic church unleashed a broadside at President Robert Mugabe's regime yesterday, accusing it of "frightening" abuses of human rights, misrule and corruption. The pastoral letter from the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Confere...

A COMPROMISING POSITION
Swedish prostitute Rosinha Sambo outside the tax and revenue office in Gothenburg. Sambo paid her taxes and then filed a police complaint against the government for accepting the money, as prostitution became illegal in Sweden in 1999. She clai...

Lewinsky to host dating show
NEW YORK -- Handbag maker, gossip-column fodder and former presidential intern Monica Lewinsky has a new gig: host of a dating game on the Fox network called Mr Personality. "I've come to realise that I've already had my own reality show," Lewins...

WORLD WATCH
Hail destroys 18000 homes BEIJING -- Hailstones the size of eggs crashed into an eastern Chinese province, destroying 18 000 homes and injuring more than 100 people, state press and local officials said yesterday. The hailstorm hit Zhejiang prov...