The main Sudanese opposition leader says the government is refusing to allow UN peacekeepers in Darfur because it knows the UN troops would help hunt down war crimes suspects for the International Criminal Court.

Eritrea’s order to expel US, Canadian and European members of the UN peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with neighbouring Ethiopia is likely to raise concerns about whether the peacekeepers can work effectively.

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake jolted south Asia today, killing at least 21 people and injuring hundreds of others in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

Syrian security forces clashed with militants, including former bodyguards of toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, near the capital early today, leaving one policeman dead and two militants in custody, the state-run SANA news agency said.

Director Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 has been banned by American ally Kuwait, because of its controversial representation of the Saudi Arabian royal family.

KUWAIT, a major US ally in the Gulf, has banned Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” because it deems the movie insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and critical of America’s invasion of Iraq, an official said yesterday.

Kuwait, a major US ally in the Gulf, has banned Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” because it deems the movie insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and critical of America’s invasion of Iraq, an official said today.

ZIMBABWE’S highest court threw out a constitutional challenge to the country’s sweeping media laws yesterday, making it now a criminal offence to work as a journalist without a licence.

Zimbabwe’s highest court threw out a constitutional challenge to the country’s sweeping media laws today, making it a criminal offence to work as a journalist without a licence.

Lawlessness spread in Baghdad today even as the fighting dwindled to occasional bursts of machine gun fire.

MEN smoked water pipes at cafes and played backgammon outside their homes and teenagers played soccer in Baghdad’s streets yesterday even as US troops rolled through the Iraqi capital.

AN armada of B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers struck communication and command centres in Baghdad, and cruise missiles set Iraq’s information Ministry ablaze yesterday in the second such attack on the building in two days.

UNITED NATIONS Secretary- General Kofi Annan last night said he would order the organisation’s weapons inspectors and humanitarian staff to leave Iraq.

Iraq said most of the helicopters used by United Nations weapons inspectors were flown out to Syria today en route to Cyprus after a Western insurance company suspended its cover for the aircraft.

Weapons inspectors paid a surprise visit to a Baghdad missile plant today as international experts met behind closed doors in New York to assess whether Iraq’s short-range missiles can fly farther than permitted.

International nuclear monitors struck out across the Iraqi desert today, heading for a remote uranium mining site, officials in Baghdad said.

A newspaper owned by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s brutal eldest son Odai has been shut down after the Information Ministry accused it of breaching publication laws.

Taliban forces appeared to be fleeing Kabul tonight as the opposition Northern Alliance said their troops had pushed to the gates of the Afghan capital.