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Zimbabwe accuses journalists

HARARE - Zimbabwe's government has threatened to arrest western journalists whom it accuses of spying on behalf of "hostile" countries ahead of next week's presidential election.

George Chiramba, spokesman for president Robert Mugabe, said the government would "flush out" reporters he described as "agitators embedded in journalism".

His statement appears to be a move to justify barring journalists from Britain and other countries during the poll on March 29th. It follows a ban on western election monitors. - (Guardian service)

3 more bodies at NY crane site

NEW YORK - Rescuers have pulled three more bodies from the rubble at the site where a crane collapsed in New York, raising the death toll to seven.

The crane crashed down in an area of Manhattan on Saturday, injuring dozens and damaging six buildings. The bodies found yesterday were believed to be those of two construction workers and of a woman who had been visiting a nearby townhouse which was demolished when the crane collapsed. - (AP)

Greek workers pensions strike

ATHENS - Strikes by millions of workers protesting against pension reforms have thrown Greece into chaos, with rolling blackouts and piles of rotting rubbish posing health risks nationwide.

The proposed reforms will see 133 pension funds merged, while bureaucrats employed in the civil service will be given incentives to retire later.

As riot police moved in to secure an Athens landfill site blocked by striking municipal employees, the country's biggest labour union, the GSEE, threatened a general strike today, exacerbating tensions with Greece's centre-right government. - (Guardian service)

Shannon police get more time

LONDON - Police have been given more time to question a man suspected of abducting schoolgirl Shannon Matthews.

The man has been named in reports as Michael Donovan (39), formerly known as Paul Drake, an uncle of Shannon's stepfather, Craig Meehan.

He was arrested on Friday after the nine-year-old was found at a house just a mile from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. - (Reuters)

2 die in Pakistan suicide bomb

MINGORA - Two police officers were killed and three wounded in a suicide bombing in a police training centre in Pakistan's northwest, the latest in a spate of violence blamed on Islamist militants.

The attack yesterday in the district of Swat came a day after at least nine militants were killed by missiles fired by a US aircraft in the South Waziristan tribal region, a haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters on the Afghan border. - (Reuters)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times