Download Regional and International News 11 September

Regional and International News 11 September 2002
Nelson Mandela has condemned United States intervention in the Middle
East as "a threat to world peace".
In an interview with a US magazine the former South African president
repeated his call for President George Bush not to launch attacks on Iraq.
He said that Mr Bush was trying to please the American arms and oil
industries.
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The anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington has been
marked across Africa. Some newspapers have used the occasion to warn
the United States against attacking Iraq.
A ceremony has been held in Nairobi, the scene of an attack by al-Qaeda
in 1998 which killed 213 people, mostly Kenyans.
Several hundred people attended a high-security, invitation only service,
including a government minister and officials from the US embassy,
which was blown up in the attack.
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A court in Niger has sentenced the country's most senior traditional ruler
to two years in prison for fraud.
This is the latest blow for former Sultan of Zinder, who was last year
sacked by the government in the socalled "Sultangate" affair.
The former sultan's lawyers boycotted the trial, saying they had been
denied access to key court papers.
The sultan is currently under house arrest and is planning an appeal
against what they call the "politically motivated" sentence.
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News just in. The Palestinian cabinet has resigned en masse rather than
face defeat in a vote of no confidence in parliament.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had accepted the resignations.
Correspondents said the cabinet had faced almost certain defeat in today's
vote as most Palestine Legislative Council deputies believed that Mr
Arafat had not done enough to meet internal and international calls for
reform.
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And finally
A man who publicly confronted astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin over
whether he actually went to the Moon said yesterday that the Apollo 11
hero almost sent him into space with a punch to the jaw.
An independent filmmaker said he was trying to conduct an ambush
interview with Aldrin outside a hotel in Beverly Hills on Monday when
the astronaut punched him and ran away.
"I approached him and asked him again to swear on a Bible that he went
to the moon, and told him he was a thief for taking money to give an
interview for something he didn't do," said the filmaker.
The incident was videotaped for a film, which claims to prove that the
Apollo 11 astronauts faked footage of their July 1969 trip to the Moon to
fool the Soviet Union into thinking the United States had won the 1960s
space race.
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I always thought that film footage looked a bit unrealistic.