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/ 16 October 2006
So what now? North Korea is the fourth, possibly fifth, state to have rejected the 1970 non-proliferation treaty and proceeded towards a nuclear arsenal. The others are India, Pakistan, Israel and perhaps Iran. That makes five states in the old nuclear club (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China) and five in the new one.
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/ 16 October 2006
More than 17 years after Iran’s late spiritual leader Ruhollah Khomeini launched a fatwa against him, British writer Salman Rushdie remains firm in his criticism of fundamentalist sects of Islam, fearing they will make the West surrender its values. ”We’re all living under a fatwa now,” the 60-year-old author, who is of Indian origin, declared last week in a long, open interview with the British daily the Independent.
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/ 16 October 2006
Sitting on the edge of the water in the Gulf of Kutch on India’s western shore is one of the United States’s dirty secrets. A mass of steel pipes and concrete boxes stretches across 33km2 — a third of the area of Manhattan — which will eventually become the world’s largest petrochemical refinery.
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/ 16 October 2006
Barring surprises, the United Nations will this week confirm the appointment of a new secretary general to succeed Kofi Annan, who is ending his second five-year term in December. Ban Ki-moon, the foreign minister of South Korea, emerged as the clear consensus candidate after consultations between the members of the security council, especially the powerful, veto-wielding permanent five.
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/ 16 October 2006
Saddam Hussein never cared for truth or justice when he ruled Iraq and those who suffered under him might think it perverse to care about his fate now. But his trial for genocide and war crimes against the Kurds has degenerated into black farce, a chaotic travesty of what should have been due process to call him to account.
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/ 16 October 2006
There’s a war going on in the United States. A war on metros. After years of living under the cruel designer heel of those triumphant metrosexuals, poor old retrosexuals — alias ”regular guys” — are fighting back. Old-time, unself-conscious, un-moisturised masculinity is in. Guys are guys again, with manly, painstakingly shaped and trimmed beards.
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/ 16 October 2006
The claim that the Constitution contains a criminal’s bill of rights has been often made by the ”law and order” lobby. These spokespeople emphasise order above law, as if the denial of due process to accused persons will curb the crime wave. There is a nostalgia in the land for a return to the jackboot of apartheid policing: assault an accused, extract the confession and procure a conviction.
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/ 16 October 2006
The Randburg Regional Court refused bail to senior Scorpions advocate Portia Kgantsi on Monday. She was arrested recently for bribery, corruption, extortion and defeating the ends of justice. Also against Kgantsi was a prior conviction for theft, about which she had never told the National Prosecuting Authority.
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/ 16 October 2006
African leaders were set to convene in Addis Ababa on Tuesday in a renewed attempt to resolve the crisis of Côte d’Ivoire, but observers here predicted a continued stalemate with the problem likely to be passed on to the United Nations. More than 10 000 people demonstrated on Sunday in Abidjan, calling for President Laurent Gbagbo to step down.
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/ 15 October 2006
African leaders need to set an example and test for HIV/Aids in public if they want to demonstrate their determination to fight the disease. Around 6 500 Africans are estimated to die every day from HIV/Aids but the stigma that continues to surround the disease means that members of the political elite are all too often reluctant to talk openly about it.