The Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa was scathing about a protest by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) outside his embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday, saying he pities the protesters. ”I hesitate to give an iota of dignity to these misguided malcontents,” Simon Khaya Moyo said.
The Constitutional Court will consider on Thursday how a death sentence should be replaced by a more appropriate one since the death penalty was abolished. The Constitutional Court in 1995 declared the death penalty unconstitutional. Since then, it has been unclear how to deal with the sentences of those prisoners given the death penalty prior to the 1995 decision.
There is no single Aids epidemic in Africa, says Hein Marais, until recently the chief writer for the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/Aids. There are many. And reasons for these different patterns may range far from medical territory into the realms of economics and history.
The upcoming Zimbabwean elections should be postponed, a leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said at a picket outside the Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday. Meanwhile, South Africa’s ambassador to Zimbabwe has not been advised of the appeal of Zimbabwe’s attorney general against the early release of 62 suspected mercenaries.
After eight months detained in Japan awaiting deportation to the United States, the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer may soon be free, his supporters claimed on Tuesday. Fischer (62) on Tuesday, was held last July when trying to leave Japan for the Philippines on an invalid passport which had been revoked by the US.
Iran’s love of goldfish as a table-top symbol of good luck costs the lives of five million of the creatures every year, a press report said on Wednesday. From March to early April, when Iranians celebrate Norooz — New Year in the Persian calendar — millions of the small fish are bred in unsanitary pools and transferred in buckets and tanks to the big cities.
Sudan needs almost -billion for reconstruction and development over the next two years to recover from two decades of north-south civil war, an assessment team said on Wednesday. The team, made up of representatives from the Khartoum government and the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, said ,8-billion, would be required until 2007.
Japanese police have found the mummified body of a 107-year-old man, who died up to a decade ago, wearing a clean kimono at his house near Osaka, an official said on Wednesday. An official with the Itami city hall said the city is considering asking the man’s family to return gifts it has received since 1999 as a token of the man’s longevity.
Two people were killed and nine were reported missing in Algerian floods this week following heavy rain in the Sahara, according to reports on Wednesday. About 70 travellers were trapped when wadis (valleys) suddenly flooded in the downpours on Sunday and Monday and had to be rescued by army helicoters, newspapers reported.
Nigeria’s House of Representatives has called on the government to halt further repayments on the country’s staggering -billion in external debts. The motion, approved by the Lower House, said the debt burden is a brake on social and economic development, and the amount owed continues to increase because of accrued interest.