Counting is under way after millions of Zimbabweans went the polls yesterday during an election that was generally regarded and peaceful. However, opponents of authoritarian president Robert Mugabe condemned the vote as "illegal, illegitimate, unfree and unfair." Members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been prime minister since 2009 in a power-sharing agreement, have claimed to have uncovered evidence of fraud and vote-rigging on a large scale.
Lloyds Banking Group has returned to profit, following an announcement that it made £2.1bn in the six months to the end of June. This compares with a £456m loss for the same period last year. Barclays is 39 per cent owned by the UK government.
Several bomb threats have been made to British female journalists using the social networking site Twitter. Police are investigating the threats made against writers at the Guardian and Independent newspapers. Hadley Freeman, who writes for the Guardian received a tweet claiming that a device had been placed outside her home and would be detonated later that night.
The Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps has suggested that it should be easier for companies to dismiss under-performing workers. He yesterday claimed that firms are often forced to invent "disingenuous reasons" to fire staff because employment laws are geared in their favour. Trades union bosses have accused the party of seeking to strip protections from employees.
Uruguay could become the first country in the to make the production and sale of marijuana completely legal after members of the South American nation's House of Representatives passed a bill favouring legalisation. If the bill, backed by president Jose Mujica, is approved by the upper house of parliament, the cultivation, distribution and sale of the drug would be controlled by the state. Mujica has said the measure will remove profits from drug dealers and divert users from harder drugs.
