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/ 29 October 2007
About 25 000 of India’s poorest people — tribal peoples, "untouchables" and landless labourers — have stopped traffic for nearly three weeks on the road that links Delhi and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. Headed by a group of chanting Buddhist monks, the marchers say they aim to shame government into keeping its promise to redistribute land.
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/ 29 October 2007
Last week, another armed group in the increasingly volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ignored a government deadline to disarm, increasing to three the number of illegal groups the Congolese army is chasing in that region.
At the same time, a Human Rights Watch report detailed the atrocities that threaten civilians living in this region.
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/ 29 October 2007
Our political culture remains decidedly short of real satire; surely it is a test of the robustness of a democracy: if it can’t take the humorous hits, our political leadership is hardly likely to be willing to answer the difficult questions. Jacob Zuma has sued Zapiro, the cartoonist: What does this tell us about his attitude to public accountability?
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/ 29 October 2007
Recently the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which seeks to promote good governance by offering monetary incentives to African presidents who govern their nations properly, ranked the performance of 48 African governments. The ranking, however, raises at least two key anxieties.
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/ 29 October 2007
How do you save the Amazon rainforest? Easy. All you need is a bit of cash and a computer. Then go to the site of Cool Earth and, with a click of the mouse, you can ”Add to cart” half-an-acre (0,2ha) of endangered rainforest for £35. Cool Earth claims this will keep locked up 130 tonnes of carbon dioxide and protect 400 unique species.
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/ 29 October 2007
In the Tanzania Declaration on Food Security, heads of state committed themselves to allocating 10% of government budgets to food security. Yet only Malawi is honouring this commitment. Why will most countries in sub-Saharan Africa fail to reach the first Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015?
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/ 29 October 2007
It takes a special kind of genius to unite the warring parties of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but George Bush may just have pulled it off. His proposal for what the United States administration calls a ”meeting”, rather than a peace conference, in Annapolis, Maryland, before the end of the year has elicited a unanimity unheard of in the Middle East.
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/ 29 October 2007
Britain’s relations with Russia faced another downturn last week following fresh reports that the missing billionaire oligarch Mikhail Gutseriyev had fled to the United Kingdom. Gutseriyev — the former head of Russneft, a Russian private oil firm — disappeared in August shortly before a Moscow court issued a warrant for his arrest.
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/ 28 October 2007
A superb strike by Siphiwe Tshabalala earned Kaizer Chiefs a semifinal berth in the Telkom Knockout Cup when they beat SuperSport United 1-0 at the Loftus Stadium on Sunday. Ironically, SuperSport had the better chances to win the game but bad finishing and the crossbar denied the hosts victory.
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/ 28 October 2007
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The tripartite alliance will not survive if Thabo Mbeki is re-elected president of the African National Congress in December, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Sunday. ”A status quo will see the destruction of the alliance itself,” he told what was in essence a Jacob Zuma election rally in Kimberley.