On a wall outside a crumbling school in rural Gokwe, central Zimbabwe, a battle is being fought. A youth is pasting a Morgan Tsvangirai poster over graffiti, written in bright orange paint, proclaiming: "Good morning Makoni." A few years ago, this would have been a job done under cover of darkness, and hurriedly.
Short of his falling out of an SUV speeding the wrong way down Moscow’s traffic-congested roads, there was never any doubt that Dmitry Medvedev would be elected Russia’s next president. The out-going president, Vladimir Putin, picked Medvedev as his successor and no challenger had a chance of beating the Kremlin’s choice.
It has been an uplifting week. The women who took back the taxi ranks in marches last Friday and on Monday this week deserve a bow from all of us. What they have done is not only to assert that the miniskirt is women’s to wear as we will, but also that public spaces are there for the public.
Rural areas are seen as a disaster. Every time there is a need to motivate for more money, more support and additional resources, the poor rural areas are dragged in to justify whatever is needed. Sadly, after the funding is allocated, often very little ends up actually improving the situation in rural areas.
Nine-year-old Ida Fraende, who likes to play with Lego bricks, is not so unusual in Scandinavia — but globally speaking she is not typical. Jorgen V Knudstorp hopes to change that. The chief executive of Europe’s largest toymaker has already brought the once-troubled group back to profit.
The attempt by Western politicians and media to present this week’s carnage in the Gaza Strip as a legitimate act of Israeli self-defence — or at best the latest phase of a wearisome conflict between two somehow equivalent sides — has reached Alice-in-Wonderland proportions, writes Seumas Milne.
Student leaders at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) are incensed at the construction of a R5-million mansion for vice-chancellor Ihron Rensburg. The construction of the new house is a sign that the university is not driven by student needs, said UJ Student Representative Council president Mhlobo Hoyi.
Dumiso Dabengwa, the senior Zanu-PF member who has rebelled against President Robert Mugabe to back Simba Makoni, says the ruling party needs reform to save Zimbabwe from ”falling into the wrong hands”. ”This is a rescue operation,” Dabengwa said after appearing with Makoni in public for the first time.
Mishehe Kalohua opens his asylum-seeker permit tenderly. The tattered page, held together by sticky-tape, has been opened and refolded so often that it has become as flimsy as cheap toilet paper. He has been waiting for well over a year for a response to his application for refugee status in the country.
Long considered the oil capital of Norway, the small south-western town of Stavanger has begun hunting for a new image that will keep the money flowing in even after the oil wells dry up. In recent years, Norway, which once ranked third among oil exporters, has slipped to fifth place.