Ethiopia and Lebanon are locked in a dispute over circumstances surrounding the death of 90 people after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 flight crashed into the Mediterranean Sea a few moments after leaving Beirut International Airport last month.

A former UN official claims his warnings of a coming calamity were stifled by a UN bureaucracy intent on keeping good relations with Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe. In the 11 months between August 2008 and July of last year, nearly 100,000 Zimbabweans came down with cholera in the first countrywide epidemic of the disease in modern history. Previous outbreaks in Zimbabwe, which have occurred annually since 2003, had affected only pockets of the country. This time, cholera was everywhere. Corpses filled the streets and hospital beds. In some districts early in the crisis, half of those infected died. It was a tragedy in every way – not least because the worst might have been prevented. Months before the initial outbreak exploded into a full-blown epidemic, Georges Tadonki, who headed the United Nations’ humanitarian office in Zimbabwe at the time, says he warned his superiors of the severe risk, suggesting to the UN country director, Agostinho Zacarias, that 30,000 cases or more were possible. But Zacarias stifled that warning, Tadonki claims.

Marion, Illinois – Until recently, people here had little reason to know the name John A. Bredenkamp or anything about his past, a tale worthy of a James Bond villain, filled with allegations of international arms deals, blood diamond trades and ties to despotic regimes in his native Africa. Bredenkamp had visited Marion just once, nine years ago, to look over the Bermuda grass fairways and 96 sand bunkers at the Kokopelli Golf Club he was about to buy. He flew out the same day. A low-profile owner, he sold the course to a Florida group in 2006. He kept only a right to split future profits if the course sold again, his one tenuous tie to this Southern Illinois city. His name might have been forgotten, except for what took place two years later. “It’s just so absurd,” said Fritz Archerd of Gainesville, Fla., head of the group that bought the course from Bredenkamp. “And it’s all because of him.”Marion, Illinois – Until recently, people here had little reason to know the name John A. Bredenkamp or anything about his past, a tale worthy of a James Bond villain, filled with allegations of international arms deals, blood diamond trades and ties to despotic regimes in his native Africa. Bredenkamp had visited Marion just once, nine years ago, to look over the Bermuda grass fairways and 96 sand bunkers at the Kokopelli Golf Club he was about to buy. He flew out the same day. A low-profile owner, he sold the course to a Florida group in 2006. He kept only a right to split future profits if the course sold again, his one tenuous tie to this Southern Illinois city. His name might have been forgotten, except for what took place two years later. “It’s just so absurd,” said Fritz Archerd of Gainesville, Fla., head of the group that bought the course from Bredenkamp. “And it’s all because of him.”

VIENNA: Austrian government officials are up in arms over the issue of housing Nigerian and other African asylum seekers, with the government saying no village or city can be found to build a third asylum center for refugees.

China has found another 170 tons of tainted milk powder in an emergency crackdown that has made it increasingly clear many products discovered in the country’s 2008 milk scandal were repackaged for sale instead of destroyed.

HARARE- A 29-kilogram consignment of diamonds from Zimbabwe’s controversial Chiadzwa diamond field has disappeared after being removed on Thursday night by police from the central bank, in violation of orders by the country’s supreme court, lawyers said at the weekend.

GABORONE: The Government of Botswana has recalled its Defence and Intelligence Attachés from Zimbabwe and demanded that Zimbabwe withdraws its Defence and Central Intelligence Organisation Attachés from Botswana by the end of February 2010 following a diplomatic fallout over the arrest of Batswana game scouts by Zimbabwean authorities in Victoria Falls. Botswana has further demanded that the two [intelligence and defence] positions should be frozen and never filled again, leaving only ambassadors.

WINDHOEK: PRIME Minister, Nahas Angula has slammed the GIPF board of trustees for forming an offshoot company within the country’s largest pension public fund without the Government’s knowledge. Angula who is also chairperson of the State Owned Enterprise Governance Council (SOEGC ) described the formation of the controversial Kuleni Fund Administrators PTY Ltd as a non-event saying that the GIPF board of trustees does not have the mandate to form a company

HARARE: The high profile trial of MDC treasurer general Roy Bennett turned emotional with the Attorney General (AG) Johannes Tomana, who is leading the prosecution team accusing the defence of ‘caricaturing’ and ‘demeaning the person of the AG.’ Bennett’s lawyer Betrice Mtetwa had produced a fake email from a sender named “Johannes Tomana” to prove that emails can be created anywhere and by anyone.

WINDHOEK – President Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia is expected to take over the chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in seven months’ time and faces the challenge of compelling Zimbabwe to implement the tribunal’s order on land acquisition. The Zimbabwe High Court ruled last week that it would not bow to an order of the SADC Tribunal barring the acquisition of land owned by 79 white farmers.