World Highlights

¤ Liberia's government banned street demonstrations yesterday while election officials investigate soccer star George Weah's allegations that a rigged run-off vote robbed him of the presidency. Supporters of the former AC Milan striker have staged repeated protests, some of which turned violent, in the capital Monrovia since voting returns showed him losing the November 8 run-off to former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

¤ Canada's political parties lurched closer to a January election yesterday, with Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal government all but certain to fall this month. The recent and rare unified stance of the country's usually fractious opposition parties on bringing down the government is holding, and a non-confidence motion in the government is expected to be debated in Parliament next week.

¤ Three tremors at a Gold Fields mine in South Africa injured 15 people yesterday but there was no impact on production, a company spokesman said. Willie Jacobsz, spokesman at the world's fourth biggest gold producer, said the tremors at the company's major Dreifontein mine near Carletonville, southwest of Johannesburg, measured 1-3 on the Richter scale and occurred yesterday morning.

¤ Iraq is investigating allegations of abuse after more than 170 prisoners were found locked in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad, many of them beaten and malnourished and some apparently tortured. The detainees were discovered on Sunday night during a raid by US soldiers who were searching for a missing teenage boy. They were found in an underground cell near an Interior Ministry compound in Jadriya, a central Baghdad neighbourhood, and many of them showed signs of severe hunger and beatings, Iraqi officials and US military sources said.

¤ Egyptian legislative elections turned violent yesterday as the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) tried to fight off the Muslim Brotherhood's challenge to its long domination of Parliament. Monitoring organisations also reported widespread intimidation, vote-buying and the illegal collective registration of civil servants in areas where they do not live.

¤ A Ugandan politician expected to be President Yoweri Museveni's main challenger in next year's polls appeared in court yesterday charged with treason in a case critics say is politically motivated. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Kampala for a second day, burning several wooden kiosks and smashing shop windows in protest against the prosecution of Kizza Besigye.

¤ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's son pleaded guilty yesterday in a campaign funding scandal that could pose a challenge to the Israeli leader ahead of expected early elections. Omri Sharon, a lawmaker and key adviser to his father, had previously said he would argue against charges he set up shell companies to funnel foreign donations to his father's 1999 race to head the right-wing Likud Party.