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/ 28 November 2007
Resources giant BHP Billiton said on Wednesday it still hoped rival Rio Tinto would warm to its uninvited takeover bid, despite opposition from customers who fear it will lead to a stranglehold on prices. BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said that its executives had been arguing the "irresistible logic" of the tie-up with customers and investors around the world for two weeks.
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/ 28 November 2007
Zimbabwe’s government newspaper offered a chilly, racially tinged welcome on Tuesday to the new United States envoy. The Herald‘s political editor Caesar Zvayi said James McGee had criticised Zimbabwe’s human rights record in statements to the US Senate and, as an appointee of US President George Bush, was likely ”to turn out to be the house Negro”.
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/ 28 November 2007
United States President George Bush has set himself the herculean task of shepherding an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of next year, but doubts remain about his commitment. Talks on borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees — are to begin on December 12.
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/ 28 November 2007
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief on Wednesday and will be sworn in as a civilian leader for a second five-year term on Thursday. Musharraf passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
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/ 28 November 2007
Oil fell below a barrel on Wednesday, pinching some of Asia’s top resource stocks, while nagging fears that a credit market squeeze will sap global growth weighed on the dollar and the region’s exporters. News that top United States bank, Citigroup, got a ,5-billion capital injection from Abu Dhabi’s investment arm on Tuesday buoyed US stocks.
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/ 28 November 2007
Doctors have long argued about the health effects of coffee, but its reputation seems poised to receive a boost thanks to a flavoured condom that aims to encourage safer sex in Ethiopia. About 300 000 of the coffee condoms were sold in a week when they were launched in September.
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/ 28 November 2007
"Africa needs to realise that without dealing with the issue of women, there will be no progress in turning HIV/Aids around," says the United Nations special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, Elizabeth Mataka. "Unless we empower women we will remain with limited success," she says.
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/ 28 November 2007
With her unkempt hair tucked into a woolen hat, a faded T-shirt, skirt and a pair of torn canvas shoes, Nokhuthula Tshuma* does not fit the stereotypical profile of a commercial sex worker. Yet, the mother of three, like thousands of impoverished Zimbabwean women, is at great risk of HIV/Aids infection.
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/ 28 November 2007
Increasing international cooperation in exchange for guns and improving the sense of domestic security are promising strategies for reducing the number of small weapons in the hands of civilians in developing countries, a leading expert on the matter says. Keith Krause, programme director of the Small Arms Survey, says that taking weapons from civilians in developing countries is the toughest part of cutting down on the number of small arms around the world.
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/ 28 November 2007
When patients hear they have Aids, their first reaction often is to think they have been given the death sentence. But, between the disease and dying lies a grey area, and that’s when palliative caregivers are most needed by patients. Palliative care aims to relieve the suffering and improve the quality of life of patients with life-threatening illnesses.