United States President George Bush’s re-election prospects received a jolt on Friday after news that rising oil prices have hit the spending power of American voters to an extent not seen since the recession of three years ago. The price of crude hit 21-year highs on the New York markets.
John Kerry opened up a modest lead in the United States presidential race on Friday after a four-day Democratic convention in which he cast himself as a cool-headed warrior. A telephone poll gave the senator a 5% point advantage over President George Bush, but that poll was taken before Kerry’s nationally televised speech on Thursday.
Forty years after independence, Malawi is still unable to ensure food security for its population, which is growing at a rate of 2% a year, according to the country’s national statistical office. More than one million, or more than 10%, of Malawi’s population are facing starvation this year, the World Food Programme has announced.
The pope will call on leaders of the Roman Catholic Church on Saturday to attack feminist ideologies that assert that men and women are fundamentally the same. The Vatican is concerned that this belief is eroding what it regards as women’s maternal vocation. A paper on the subject is due to be published on Saturday.
Defending champions Kaizer Chiefs swept Black Leopards aside 2-0 in the semifinal and booked a place in the final of the Telkom Charity Cup competition at the FNB Stadium on Saturday. AmaKhosi took the lead in the 35th minute via the golden boot of John ”Shoes” Moshoeu.
Mike Tyson was knocked out in the fourth round on Friday night in a shocking end to the latest comeback of the fighter who once was the most feared heavyweight of his era. Unheralded British heavyweight Danny Williams landed a flurry of punches that sent Tyson sprawling into the ropes.
One man ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month — and the results were far from pretty. Oliver Burkeman meets cult movie-maker Morgan Spurlock.
It seems literary prizes are a dime dozen these days. While prizes help support literature and help to increase the audience for new and worthy voices, there are other ways too, writes Jacana publisher Maggie Davey.
Touching the Void enlarges the sense of what a documentary can achieve, writes Peter Bradshaw. It leaves the audience on the edge of its seats, lips parted, knuckles whitened.
The sorrows of young Botok began when he was half-born. His mother, a regal dromedary named Ingen Temee — who is also the first-billed star and title character in The Story of the Weeping Camel — got fed up during the last stages of a difficult labour. And so a story of rejection, compassion and reconciliation was born, reports Jessica Winter.