Barely two weeks after meeting and assuring President Thabo Mbeki of their strength and unqualified support, the pro-Senate faction of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change is on its political death bed, analysts predict. The Mail & Guardian has been informed that 10 or more legislators in have already made known their intention to jump ship.
The number of international refugees has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, but civil wars have led to a big rise in those forced to flee their homes while staying within the boundaries of their country, according to the United Nations.
There will be opportunities aplenty in local television in the coming years but this calls for ‘convergence’ in the industry, writes Howard Thomas.
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen millions of French people — students, trade unionists and pretty much any other group you care to mention — protesting on the streets against a small change in labour laws. The protests were bigger, though less violent, than last year’s riots in many of France’s poor suburbs, home to many of its immigrants.
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At least 22 people were killed and 150 wounded as three blasts rocked a market and a busy restaurant area in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Dahab on Monday during the high tourism season, state television said. The Dahab (”gold” in Arabic) resort is popular with Western backpackers and budget Israeli tourists.
HIV/Aids is increasingly regarded as a disease of the poor, blunting the enthusiasm of the rich and powerful to develop tools such as a virus-killing gel that could save millions of lives, delegates at an international conference said on Monday. Speakers at the conference said development of a microbicide gel that could be used by women to prevent the spread of the virus was slow.
Africa needs the capacity and donor aid to react swiftly to deal with a potentially large-scale outbreak of bird flu, a conference of experts from 19 African countries heard on Monday. ”Africa needs a rapid response to the disease and must draw up practical measures to control and prevent the disease,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister, Uladi Mussa, said on the opening day of the conference in the capital, Lilongwe.
Security officers were due to meet Gauteng safety provincial minister Firoz Cachalia on Monday in an attempt to find a solution to their wage dispute with employers. South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) spokesperson Ronnie Mamba said Cachalia agreed to meet the guards who were holding a vigil outside his office in Fox street, Johannesburg.
Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a United Nations Security Council demand to halt sensitive nuclear work and warned that the Islamic republic could quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In a show of defiance just days away from a Friday deadline set by the Security Council for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, Ahmadinejad confidently dismissed the threat of sanctions.