His name is ”Average” and the story of his desperate flight from the wreckage of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is an increasingly common one. The tall 34-year-old, slouching exhausted in a Johannesburg church that has become a de facto transit camp, is one man in a tide of migrants washing up in South Africa.
Zimbabwe’s elections must be free and fair next year and economic recovery in the troubled country will only be achieved by a government viewed as legitimate by all its citizens, South Africa’s president said on Sunday. Thabo Mbeki heads the regional mediation process between Zimbabwe’s government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was expected to walk a fine line in talks on Monday with President George Bush, keeping some distance on issues like Iraq while preserving the ”special relationship” with the United States. The Camp David meeting is the first between the new British prime minister and Bush since Brown succeeded Tony Blair last month.
Hosts Botswana upset Angola to win Sunday’s Cosafa Castle Cup Group C final with a 3-1 victory on penalties following a goalless draw after 90 minutes. Goalkeeper Modiri Marumo was the hero in the shoot-out as his saves denied Angola, who played in the 2006 World Cup finals.
In the bowels of Iran’s uranium conversion facility in Isfahan strands of black and red wire stretch from the concrete wall to giant white tanks full of a volatile uranium compound. It is by these slender cords that the international community hopes to hold Iran’s atomic ambitions in check.
Italy’s gay activists on Sunday organised a sit-in ”with collective kissing” at the Colosseum to protest against the arrest of two men, for what police described as an ”oral relationship”. They risk being tried for public indecency, punishable by up to two years in jail.
Former president FW de Klerk on Sunday defended his decision to authorise a raid in Mthatha in 1993 in which five teenagers were killed. ”Although the operation was tragically botched, Mr De Klerk himself acted in his capacity as head of government with due deliberation and care and in complete compliance with national and international law,” said a statement from his foundation.
The Gauteng provincial housing department has pledged R85-million towards the development of four hostels in the province. Provincial housing minister Nomvula Mokonyane held talks with African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party supporters who lived in hostels where a number of protests took place earlier this month.
At five feet tall, Asma Jahangir is not an imposing figure, but for almost four decades she has towered over Pakistan’s human rights war. She has championed battered wives, rescued teenÂagers from death row, defended people accused of blasphemy and sought justice for the victims of honour killings. These battles have won her admirers and enemies in great number.
It is a party trick well known to curious teenagers across the United States. Zoom down on Washington via Google Earth and you get an extraordinary eagle-eyed view of the world’s greatest powerhouse. There’s the White House and its West Wing. Sweeping south-east across the Potomac you soar above the Pentagon. But there is one thing you can’t do.