According to Yemen’s official news agency, a judge ordered Elbaneh’s arrest after prosecutors filed a request to lock him up. Elbaneh is one of three dozen Yemeni defendants being tried on charges of conspiring to blow up oil installations in 2006.

You could have read all about it across the front pages of Zimbabwe’s state-run press over recent weeks, backed by what are purported to be documents outlining opposition schemes to steal the unresolved presidential election, British plans to invade and put President Robert Mugabe on trial at The Hague, and the alleged letter from Brown saying that the ruling Zanu-PF party is “no longer relevant to the people of Zimbabwe”.

Under headlines such as “Return to Rhodesia”, weeks of supposed revelations have included claims that white former generals will be brought back to take over the Zimbabwean army, that racially segregated residential areas will be reintroduced and that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has proven to be an imperialist puppet by enduring a course in British etiquette.

Farrow is expected to speak out at a news conference Friday against China, a major trading partner with Sudan, for not doing more to stop atrocities in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Her entry into the former British colony, which is supposed to have autonomy from the mainland under a “one country, two systems” formula, was closely watched by free speech advocates and other critics of Chinese policy.

EU foreign ministers toasted the new pact with champagne but it was widely seen as a gesture timed to give a boost to pro-EU parties in the Serb general election on May 11.

The agreement is unlikely to come into force for some time because it requires full Serbian cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, which is demanding the arrest of key fugitives including former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and wartime leader Radovan Karadzic. Both have been on the run since the 1990s.

“We believe we are irreversibly on the road to EU membership,” said Vuk Jeremic, the Serbian foreign minister and a member of the pro-EU faction in the Government.

According to a leading sports scientist, at least one football club has explored the possibility of using genetic screening to separate prospective Ronaldos from those destined to join the Sunday morning hackers on Hackney Marshes.

Dr Henning Wackerhage of the school of medical sciences at Aberdeen University told the Guardian that a professional club had made contact with him about the possibility of screening players to discover whether they have a genetic predisposition to athletic excellence.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said he hoped the Afghan army would “deliver security” in the most dangerous parts of Helmand by the end of the year. He said the provincial governor was keen to see Afghan troops take over in three hotspot towns in “the heart of Helmand”, and it was his job to help that happen.

“We may see, by the end of this year, or beginning of next, areas where security is delivered by the Afghan army,” he said. “The priorities are Gereshk, Lashkar Gah and Sangin.”

Fighting in all three towns have claimed British lives. Lashkar Gah is the provincial capital and home of the UK headquarters. Gereshk controls the main road which links Helmand to the rest of Afghanistan, and Sangin, in the heart of the opium belt, witnessed the bloodiest fighting between British troops and the Taliban.