In Brief

Zim armed police halt rally *HARARE – Zimbabwe riot squads fired water cannon to drive people off the streets of a troubled township in the capital Harare yesterday after a major opposition rally was stopped.

Reporters saw at least 10 trucks full of heavily-armed police driving around Harare’s Highfield township, where they had earlier arrested dozens of people and sealed off a sports ground where the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was due to hold a rally. The police also mounted roadblocks in the township, and searched cars and questioned motorists.Some residents said before the armoured patrols moved in, some youths had earlier pelted police foot patrols with stones, and the township’s dusty streets were strewn with rocks.Zimbabwe’s High Court on Saturday ordered President Robert Mugabe’s government to allow the rally.Baby bones found in hospital yard *BHOPAL – Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recovered 390 pieces of bones of newly born babies or foetuses from the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital, officials and media reports said yesterday.”The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions,” Superintendent of Police Satish Saxena said, speaking from Ratlam town where the grisly find was made on Saturday.Ratlam is 230 km west of Bhopal, the state capital.Police, acting on a tip, dug up the backyard of the hospital and found the pieces of bones, some stuffed in plastic bags.Two bodies test positive for poison *PANAMA CITY – Two bodies in Panama have tested positive for a toxic chemical at the heart of a scandal over adulterated medicine made in government laboratories, a forensic scientist said on Saturday.Panama declared a national epidemic alert in October after people began dying from an unexplained ailment that affected the renal system and caused neurological damage.US experts later identified the cause as cough syrups and other medicines tainted with diethylene glycol, a solvent that was used in place of a similar but more expensive chemical often found in liquid drugs.Nampa-ReutersThe police also mounted roadblocks in the township, and searched cars and questioned motorists.Some residents said before the armoured patrols moved in, some youths had earlier pelted police foot patrols with stones, and the township’s dusty streets were strewn with rocks.Zimbabwe’s High Court on Saturday ordered President Robert Mugabe’s government to allow the rally.Baby bones found in hospital yard *BHOPAL – Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recovered 390 pieces of bones of newly born babies or foetuses from the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital, officials and media reports said yesterday.”The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions,” Superintendent of Police Satish Saxena said, speaking from Ratlam town where the grisly find was made on Saturday.Ratlam is 230 km west of Bhopal, the state capital.Police, acting on a tip, dug up the backyard of the hospital and found the pieces of bones, some stuffed in plastic bags. Two bodies test positive for poison *PANAMA CITY – Two bodies in Panama have tested positive for a toxic chemical at the heart of a scandal over adulterated medicine made in government laboratories, a forensic scientist said on Saturday.Panama declared a national epidemic alert in October after people began dying from an unexplained ailment that affected the renal system and caused neurological damage.US experts later identified the cause as cough syrups and other medicines tainted with diethylene glycol, a solvent that was used in place of a similar but more expensive chemical often found in liquid drugs.Nampa-Reuters