The recent Southern African Development Community summit in Lusaka was clouded by a seven-year-old face-off between Africa and the West over Zimbabwe. And the continuing brinkmanship promises to haunt the Euro-Africa summit in Portugal and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Uganda, both of which take place later this year, writes Peter Kagwanja.
Brazilian Felipe Massa secured the fifth win of his Formula One career and the third of this season when he spearheaded a Ferrari one-two in Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix. The victory revived his hopes of challenging for the drivers’ championship and Ferrari’s bid for the constructors’ title.
The African National Congress government is ruthlessly extracting every cent it can from former deputy minister of health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge while the health minister is spending exorbitant amounts of public money unnecessarily on helicopters to travel around the Eastern Cape, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday.
A hot-air balloon caught fire over western Canada, forcing screaming passengers to leap to the ground, some with their clothes in flames, witnesses said. Two people burned to death after being unable to jump from the balloon and 11 were seriously injured, police said on Saturday.
Mother Teresa’s hidden faith struggle, laid bare in a new book that shows she felt alone and separated from God, is forcing a re-examination of one of the world’s best-known religious figures. Roman Catholic scholars argue that her struggles make her more accessible and her work all the more remarkable.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa and his Malawian counterpart launched a long-delayed joint rail project on Saturday that is expected to help boost trade in Southern Africa, state radio said. Mwanawasa said the venture will connect his landlocked nation to the coast of Mozambique through Malawi.
Côte d’Ivoire’s Justice Department is pursuing a new lead in the disappearance of a French-Canadian journalist, the state prosecutor said on Saturday. Guy-Andre Kieffer, who had dual French and Canadian citizenship, disappeared three years ago and is presumed dead.
A wave of attacks killed a civilian and wounded five others in the Somali capital on Saturday, witnesses said, as Islamists vowed to wage a stronger insurgency to drive Ethiopian forces out. Insurgents overnight fired grenades at the Hotel Lafweyn where Somali National Reconciliation Congress delegates are staying.
Six children from the same family were killed when a landmine left over from Mozambique’s civil war exploded in the Southern African country, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday. The children found the landmine while playing on Thursday in a field behind their home, the ministry said.
A drop in the monthly inflation rate may have been greeted with sighs of relief by the Zimbabwean government, but analysts and consumers have seen little evidence that the economy has turned a corner. While the annual rate hit a new high of 7 634,8%, month-on-month inflation in July was lower than the June rate.