World in brief: Castro ends ban on desktop PCs

Cubans are getting wired.

The island’s communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro.

A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly $780. While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store.

The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512K RAM and are equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Both could be violations of a U.S. trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana. Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China.

Islamabad, Pakistan

Agreement reached on restoring judges

Pakistan’s ruling parties have apparently agreed how to restore the judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf last fall, potentially resolving the most contentious issue facing the fledgling government and preventing the fragile coalition from collapsing.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, leader of the second-largest party in the coalition, said at a news conference in Lahore on Friday that parliament would vote on a resolution to restore the judges May 12.

But it is not yet clear how the restoration of the judges will affect Musharraf, whose election in October to a five-year presidential term has been disputed in court.

Musharraf fired the country’s top judges when he declared an emergency in November.

The agreement to restore the judges is seen by some as a compromise and an attempt to dilute the power of the Supreme Court, by combining the restored judges with the pro-Musharraf judges sworn in after Musharraf declared an emergency.

Harare, Zimbabwe

Opposition won’t let Mugabe co-rule

Zimbabwe’s opposition said Friday it was willing to share power with the ruling party, but not with longtime President Robert Mugabe.

Left unresolved was whether a runoff election would be held. Mugabe said he was willing to take part in a second round of voting after official results showed him in second place.

However, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was cool to the idea, saying a runoff could not be held now in a climate of violence and repression.

Earlier in the day, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released results from the March 29 presidential election that showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai winning the most votes, but not the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff with Mugabe.