In Brief

* IRAQ DEATHS – A US soldier was killed in Baghdad yesterday when a homemade bomb exploded alongside an army patrol, the military said.The incident happened in the western part of the city, less than 24 hours after four US troops were killed in separate attacks in Iraq.

According to the last update of the Pentagon website on Thursday, 2 138 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. * POLL SECURITY – Iraq is to enforce draconian security measures to ensure that Thursday’s landmark general election takes place with a minimum of violence, Interior Minister Bayan Baker Solagh announced yesterday.The country will ground to a halt for the election, with a five-day public holiday in place, a ban on weapons carrying and night-time curfews.* BARRED – The Zimbabwean government has barred the owner and publisher of the Mail & Guardian newspaper from returning to South Africa.Trevor Ncube, who also owns Zimbabwe’s Standard and Independent newspapers, told Sapa his passport was impounded upon landing in Bulawayo on Wednesday.The confiscation of Ncube’s passport is based on recent constitutional amendments which allow for the withdrawal of Zimbabwean citizenship from those the government deemed to be harming interests of country.Ncube bought the Mail & Guardian, which has published articles critical of the Mugabe regime, in 2002.* HOMEBREW HORROR – At least 11 people have died and 55 became seriously ill in southern Sri Lanka after drinking bootleg liquor, police said yesterday.The man who made the illegal brew has been arrested together with a woman who sold it to residents of the town of Matara, 160 km south of the capital, police said.Among those hospitalised was an excise department official entrusted with cracking down on illegal distilleries, police said.MASS SUICIDES – Police said they suspect group suicides claimed the lives of eight people Saturday in separate incidents across Japan.Kyodo News agency reported that notes left behind in one incident indicated a group suicide, but Sawaki said the circumstances of the deaths of the three men and one woman were still being investigated.- Nampa-AFP-Sapa* POLL SECURITY – Iraq is to enforce draconian security measures to ensure that Thursday’s landmark general election takes place with a minimum of violence, Interior Minister Bayan Baker Solagh announced yesterday.The country will ground to a halt for the election, with a five-day public holiday in place, a ban on weapons carrying and night-time curfews.* BARRED – The Zimbabwean government has barred the owner and publisher of the Mail & Guardian newspaper from returning to South Africa.Trevor Ncube, who also owns Zimbabwe’s Standard and Independent newspapers, told Sapa his passport was impounded upon landing in Bulawayo on Wednesday.The confiscation of Ncube’s passport is based on recent constitutional amendments which allow for the withdrawal of Zimbabwean citizenship from those the government deemed to be harming interests of country.Ncube bought the Mail & Guardian, which has published articles critical of the Mugabe regime, in 2002.* HOMEBREW HORROR – At least 11 people have died and 55 became seriously ill in southern Sri Lanka after drinking bootleg liquor, police said yesterday.The man who made the illegal brew has been arrested together with a woman who sold it to residents of the town of Matara, 160 km south of the capital, police said.Among those hospitalised was an excise department official entrusted with cracking down on illegal distilleries, police said.MASS SUICIDES – Police said they suspect group suicides claimed the lives of eight people Saturday in separate incidents across Japan.Kyodo News agency reported that notes left behind in one incident indicated a group suicide, but Sawaki said the circumstances of the deaths of the three men and one woman were still being investigated.- Nampa-AFP-Sapa