Crews dismantle illegal shacks
Workers under police guard have started tearing down illegally built shacks that have mushroomed across Zambia, despite pleas from human rights groups that thousands will be left homeless during an especially heavy rainy season.
The first demolitions started Saturday with about 100 shacks in Kalikiliki, a township in the capital, Lusaka. Riot police were there to protect about 400 workers who tore down the homes, but they met no resistance, Chanda Makanta, a spokeswoman for Lusaka City Council, said Sunday. The shacks had only recently been built, and their owners had not yet moved in.
Some have compared the demolitions to neighboring Zimbabwe’s mass “clean-up” in 2005, in which 700,000 people were left homeless when the government razed shantytowns, often in opposition strongholds.
CAIRO, Egypt
Boy diagnosed with bird flu
A 4-year-old boy has contracted the potentially deadly strain of bird flu, bringing to two dozen the number of people diagnosed with the disease since it appeared in the country last year, the Health Ministry said Sunday.
Mohammed Mahmoud Ibrahim tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu Saturday. The boy, who lives in the Nile delta town of Daqahliya, is at Manshiyat Al Bakri children’s hospital in Cairo, the ministry said.
A Health Ministry official said the boy contracted the virus from birds raised by his family.
JERUSALEM
Palestinian calls talks ‘difficult’
The second summit in a month between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, encouraged by U.S. officials as a way to nurture their fledgling dialogue, produced little progress on Sunday. A Palestinian participant called it “difficult.”
In the only concrete result, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to keep the vital Karni cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza open for longer hours to allow more goods to enter and exit, an official said.
Larger issues standing in the way of a peace agreement – borders, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem – were apparently not seriously discussed.