Month: September 2009

Harare, September 01: Zimbabwe’s government is demanding 50 per cent of all investments in the country’s diamond wealth, local media reported Tuesday.

“With diamonds, we want 50-50 per cent shareholding in joint ventures with investors,” Mines Minister Obert Mpofu was quoted by the state-controlled Herald newspaper as telling a parliamentary committee on mining. “That’s not negotiable.”

Mpofu said the government was drafting legislation to put its stake into law.

London, September 01: Britain will publish all “relevant” correspondence with Scotland on the Lockerbie bomber, an official said, amid suggestions oil deals with Libya played a role in his release.

London will publish Tuesday its communication with Scottish ministers over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, whose release from prison earlier this month sparked outrage in the United States, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

“We will release all relevant documents with Scottish ministers,” the spokeswoman told AFP, declining to give details.

Seoul, September 01: North Korea Tuesday lifted tough restrictions on cross-border traffic with South Korea, the government here said, its latest apparent goodwill gesture after months of hostility.

As of Tuesday the North was allowing 12 northbound crossings and 11 return trips a day, the unification ministry said, compared to just three daily crossings each way under curbs imposed last December.

Kaohsiung, September 01: The Dalai Lama Tuesday led thousands in prayer in his first big public appearance since arriving in Taiwan, as China signalled its ire by postponing or scaling down planned events with the island.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader emerged in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 in a stadium in the southern city of Kaohsiung, underlining the devout Buddhism of a large part of the population on the island.

Washington, September 01: The White House has dismissed former vice-president Dick Cheney’s attacks on a probe into alleged CIA abuses of “war on terrorism” detainees and sharply questioned his foreign policy judgement.

“This is the same song and dance we’ve heard since literally the first day of our administration,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said after Cheney blasted the investigation as politically driven and harmful to national security.

Khartoum, September 01: Tribesmen trying to steal cattle attacked a village in southern Sudan, sparking a conflict that killed 46 people, including seven soldiers, the UN has said.

The incident was the latest in a rising wave of tribal violence in the south that has killed more than 2,000 people, including many women and children, and displaced another 250,000, according to the UN.

Tokyo, September 01: An estimated 795,000 people from Tokyo and 30 other prefectures took part in annual anti-earthquake drills conducted by the central and local governments Tuesday, the 86th anniversary of the 1923 killer quake, the Cabinet Office said.

The central government held the drill on the presumption that a quake with a magnitude of 7.3 and the maximum intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese seismic scale of 7 pounded the heavily populated Tokyo metropolitan area.