Free Republic

ZIMBABWE police are hunting a traditional spirit medium who led President Robert Mugabe's government on a fruitless search for much-needed fuel she said was mysteriously oozing out of a rock. The southern African state is battling with acute fuel shortages amid an economic crisis many blame on Mugabe's policies. A Zimbabwean government newspaper today reported a 35-year-old traditional healer and spirit medium claimed to have discovered diesel streaming from a rock in the northwest around Chinhoyi Caves, protected by locals as a traditional shrine. Rotina Mavhunga had said "the diesel was a gift from ancestral spirits who saw that their...

Lawyers for Mohamed al Fayed today launched an astonishing bid to force the Queen to give evidence in the Diana, Princess of Wales inquest. They called for the monarch to be "directly approached" over conversations she allegedly had with former royal butler Paul Burrell. Mr Burrell, who previously worked for the Princess, claimed after the collapse of his Old Bailey trial for theft that the monarch had once warned him of "powers at work in this country which we have no knowledge about".Mohamed al Fayed has fought a long battle over the inquest of his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess...