An impoverished South African family has launched a legal battle against United States entertainment giant Walt Disney seeking royalties for its use of a song by a popular Zulu composer in The Lion King. Solomon Linda, a Zulu migrant worker turned songwriter, wrote the tune in 1939 that became the world hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, was on Wednesday given sweeping powers to counter insurgents, including the right to declare a state of emergency and impose nationwide curfews. The comprehensive package of measures will also allow him to appoint military governors to take charge of cities or provinces, close the country’s borders, seize the assets of suspects and monitor their phone calls and e-mails.
Like all great double acts they came together to play to each other’s strengths and cancel out their weaknesses. The straight man and the crowd pleaser; John Kerry painted in matt, John Edwards in gloss. The two Johnnies, on the first stop of a tour they hope will put them in the White House.
The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Oregon has become the first in the United States to file for bankruptcy protection in response to increasing accusations of priestly sexual abuse of children and the prospect of more multimillion-dollar settlements to add to the -million it has already had to pay out.
The African Union was on Wednesday set to suppress one of its own reports critical of Zimbabwe’s human rights record, in the wake of protests about procedure and claims that the two-year-old assessment was ”smuggled” on to the agenda of this weeks AU summit.
African Parliament comes to SA
Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror
The mandatory death penalty for murder in Jamaica was abolished on Wednesday, winning a reprieve for more than 60 prisoners on death row, in a historic judgement from nine judges sitting in London. But the penalty will remain in force in Trinidad and Barbados after the same judges ruled that the clear wording of those countries’ constitutions barred them from interfering to strike it down
The South African Parliament has welcomed the decision by the African Union to make South Africa the permanent seat of the Pan-African Parliament. ”We shall work hard to make the institution serve its purposes as a true African Parliament,” Speaker Baleka Mbete said in a statement on Thursday.
The South African rand was expected to test the key psychological six per dollar level on Thursday as it continued to rally on the back of offshore demand for the local unit. At 08h49, the rand was quoted at its best level since January 7, 2000, of 6,0451 per dollar from an overnight close of 6,10 on Wednesday and 6,2876 on Tuesday.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was marginally weaker in noon trade on Thursday as a strong rand continued to keep the bourse in check. On the market’s upside, gold stocks continued to benefit from a higher bullion price. The rand was quoted at R6,09 per dollar from R6,11 when the JSE closed on Wednesday.
They are the institutions of hope and aspiration that have become soiled and bedraggled. With a trail of many tragic millions of rands wasted, and of human and institutional failure, it is time to take a hard look at whether we need the National Development Agency, the National Empowerment Fund, the loan guarantee agency Khula and the enterprise promotion agency Ntsika — at least in their present form.