Forget Freddy Krueger and Norman Bates — here comes Burqa Man. The first serious Pakistani horror flick for a quarter of a century features a psychopath dressed in a blood-soaked version of the traditional garb of Islamic women. Hordes of zombies, including an undead dwarf, add to the gore in the self-financed Zibahkhana (Hell’s Ground).
Zimbabwe’s escalating food crisis comes amid resurgent accusations that food aid is being abused as a political tool. The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme have said that more than 2,1-million Zimbabweans in both rural and urban areas will be in dire need of food aid in the third quarter of this year.
Three weeks ago, when the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor opened in The Hague, the accused made headlines for failing to appear in court. In his former capacity as the president of Liberia, Taylor is accused of having presided over a criminal network of armed combatants, whose crimes in Sierra Leone between 1996 and 2002 amounted to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
Frail, wizened and wheelchair-bound with a heart complaint, 78-year-old Joey Lombardo hardly cuts the figure of a ruthless Mafia godfather allegedly behind more than a dozen Chicago murders in the 1970s and 1980s. But to the authorities in the Windy City, the gangster nicknamed ”the Clown” for his wisecracks and sharp wit is perhaps their biggest catch since Al Capone almost 80 years ago.
A few weeks ago a tele-vision reviewer for one of the national dailies filed his opinions on the hit drama, The Sopranos. He was appalled to learn that the show was nothing but an orgy of violence, betrayal and sexual infidelity. Of course it is. What is surprising is that he was surprised.
You’ve gone grey, a long-time friend said looking at me in embarrassment. Perhaps he thought I had gone grey overnight. Not so. My silver-grey head of hair was 20 years in the making. ”You should talk to Jenny; she does something to her hair every week,” he told me.
What happens when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families? Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union, writes Uri Avnery.
Since its launch just more than a decade ago, the al-Jazeera satellite TV station has transformed the politics of the Middle East. For the first time, people in the region had access to a genuinely free and independent source of news and comment that was neither under the control of dictatorial regimes nor of Western states or corporations.
Three years into Transnet’s turn-around, Maria Ramos has swapped her customary high heels for a pair of sturdier shoes, as financial and management restructuring gives way to an enormous operational overhaul of the rail, port, and pipelines businesses. The past fortnight has seen announcements about a better deal for pensioners, the R1,4-billion sale of the housing loan book to FNB, and the planned disposal of the Carlton Centre.
A restricted United Nations report says the human-rights situation in the Western Sahara is of serious concern. The report, released this week by the office of the UN’s high commission for human rights, says ”the Saharawi people are not only denied their right to self-determination, but … severely restricted from exercising a series of other rights …