Browsing daily archive
Schools will close on Thursday, at least two weeks earlier than had been scheduled, a development which has been necessitated by the harmonised polls set for Monday. President Emmerson Mnangagwa proclaimed July 30 as the date for elections.
Petrol prices are marginally increasing at some pump stations after holding steady for the better part of the month. Observers fear the increases, blamed on bottlenecks in the supply chain, could have ripple effects on food prices.
A former Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) employee who was released from police custody by ex-vice president Phelekezela Mphoko in 2016 is now facing criminal prosecution over graft charges.
North Korea appears to have begun dismantling part of a key rocket launch site in the country’s north-west. Satellite images of the Sohae station seen by US-based monitoring group 38 North suggest Pyongyang is complying with a promise made to the US in June.
A ZANU PF politburo member who became a symbol of resistance against former president Robert Mugabe’s regime stirred a hornet’s nest over the weekend by insinuating that former liberation war fighters will not accept an MDC Alliance victory at the impending polls.
At least 60 people have reportedly died in wildfires in the Attica region around Athens, in Greece’s worst fire crisis in more than a decade. A local official gave the death toll to local media after flames devastated the seaside village of Mati.
Most members of the Thai youth football team rescued from a flooded cave are having their heads shaved as they are ordained as novices in a Buddhist ceremony. Their coach is also receiving monk’s orders. One of the boys is not joining the ceremony as he is a Christian.
Comedian Trevor Noah has responded to criticism of a racist joke he told in 2013 about Aboriginal Australian women, saying that he had “vowed never to make a joke like that again”. Noah, now host of The Daily Show in the US, faced a backlash after video of the joke was freshly circulated online.
Militant Islamists have stormed a military base in southern Somalia after detonating a suicide car bomb. Al-Shabab says its fighters killed 27 soldiers in the raid, about 50km (31 miles) from the port city of Kismayo.
Diamond producer De Beers says it has started an operation to move 200 elephants from its game reserve in South Africa to Mozambique. The elephant population at the private Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve was too high, and risked causing extensive damage to the ecosystem, the firm said.