Reuters - Many Zimbabweans boycotted their one
candidate-election on Friday, but witnesses and monitors said
government militias forced people to vote for 84-year-old
President Robert Mugabe in some areas.
AP - As salmonella cases continue to climb, the government is checking if tainted tomatoes really are to blame for the record outbreak or if the problem is with another ingredient, or a warehouse that is contaminating newly harvested tomatoes.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US consumer spending rose 0.8 percent in May, as Americans spent the proceeds of tax rebate checks, while incomes swelled 1.9 percent, a government report showed Friday.
SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea on Friday blew up the cooling tower of its atomic reactor in a dramatic symbol of its commitment to nuclear disarmament, one day after handing over details of its atomic programmes.
WASHINGTON — It seemed dramatic. President Bush stepped into the Rose Garden to announce plans to remove North Korea from the U.S. terrorism blacklist and ease sanctions against a country he once branded as part of his “axis of evil.” But just as soon as he said it, he played down its significance. Bush said what the United States was giving North Korea in exchange for its long-awaited accounting of its secretive nuclear program was largely symbolic — that they would have little impact on North Korea’s financial and diplomatic isolation. Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed. “The reality is that there are so many other sanctions on North Korea…
I was out early morning and the protests were still going on. People were pelting stones onto civilian vehicles. Only when the police came to disperse the crowd could I pass by. I even saw an ambulance with broken windowpanes, which was really sad. The issue of the land-transfer is not the real issue as far as people protesting are concerned. People have pent-up emotion and anger which takes advantage of any situation which arises. Nothing is happening on the ground. We haven’t seen troop reductions, we haven’t seen development. So we see protests. People feel the government are trying to effect a demographic change by settling Hindu people in locations where there shouldn’t be any…
KYOTO, Japan — North Korea’s long-awaited declaration of its nuclear capabilities took center stage at a meeting of wealthy nations’ foreign ministers Friday, with concerns growing over how to verify that it is actually moving to abandon its nuclear stockpile. The North Korean declaration was the core topic as the Group of Eight ministers met for their second and final day of talks aimed at setting the political agenda for the annual G-8 summit next month. Also on the table were Iran’s…