SOUTHERN AFRICA

ZIMBABWE DAYS FROM RUNNING OUT OF WHEAT

Zimbabwe is down to its last few days of wheat supplies and many bakeries have little or no bread. Even more alarmingly the crisis engulfing President Robert Mugabe’s regime has seen maize meal, the country’s staple food, all but disappearing from supermarkets and what is available sells on the black market at up to four times the controlled price. “I can’t afford bread any longer,” said Rejoice Makore, 54, a self-employed handyman in central Harare. “Only Jesus can help us now. I am hungry all the time.” His business is faltering as fuel, only available at black market prices, is now so expensive he cannot afford to travel to customers.

– The Daily Telegraph

NORTHERN AFRICA

EGYPTIAN JOURNALIST CONVICTED OF LIBEL, SENTENCED TO A YEAR IN JAIL

CAIRO, Egypt – A court has convicted a journalist of libeling a judge and sentenced her to one year in jail, her chief editor said yesterday. Yesterday’s conviction of Amira Malash, a reporter for the independent weekly Al-Fagr, was the second time in two months that court ruled against a journalist facing prison time in a libel case involving a government official. The hearing for Malash lasted eight minutes, said Al-Fagr’s editor, Adel Hamouda, who added that the weekly will appeal. “The judge did not even listen to the defense team,” Malash said in an interview with Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera. She is free on bail pending the appeal. “At a time when we have freedom of expression in Egypt, this verdict is wrecking everything,” she said. “Freedom of the press in Egypt … is collapsing.”

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

102 PRIESTS SUSPECTED OF ABUSING CHILDREN IN DUBLIN

DUBLIN, Ireland – The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, rocked for a decade by sex scandals, yesterday made its biggest admission yet: 102 of its Dublin priests past and present, or 3.6% of the total, are suspected of abusing children. The disclosure comes a week before the government convenes a probe into how church and state authorities conspired, by negligence and design, to cover up decades of child abuse within the Dublin priesthood. “It’s very frightening for me to see that in some of these cases, so many children were abused. It’s very hard to weigh that up against anything,” said Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican diplomat assigned to Dublin in 2003 to address the problem in Ireland’s largest Catholic congregation. Since his appointment, the archdiocese – home to more than 1 million Catholics – has been going over the personnel records of more than 2,800 priests who have worked in Dublin since 1940.

– Associated Press