It was the most eagerly anticipated event in this year’s German cultural calendar, set to make or break a young woman’s career. But following a cascade of boos and the comparison of her production of Die Meistersinger to a ”top-heavy pizza with a thick topping on a thin base”, things were not looking too rosy on Thursday for Katharina Wagner.
President Thabo Mbeki seized the occasion of his speech to the African region conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on Friday to tick off a number of countries present who have not yet passed anti-terrorism laws. "All of us are obliged to take action to implement the provisions of the African Convention on Terrorism," said.
A correspondent for China’s international radio station who has not been seen since apparently abandoning his post in Zimbabwe was officially warned on Thursday to return to work. China Radio International posted a notice in the <i>China Daily</i> newspaper saying that Cheng Qinghua "left his post without authorisation" on April 20.
I’m sitting on a rough wooden bench beside Eero, a large Finnish man, next to a traditional smoke sauna in the middle of an island, in the middle of a river (in which we’ve just swum), in the middle of a forest, in the middle of Finland, which right now feels, blissfully, like the middle of nowhere. Naked. Vapour steams from our shoulders and thighs while my head appears to have floated free of my neck, writes Owen Sheers.
Washington is seeking closer ties with Libya now that the Bulgarian medics case is resolved and the first tangible sign is a likely visit this year by top diplomat Condoleezza Rice. There are also other expected plans to boost cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries while increasing business links.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, proposed a ”Eurafrica” partnership between the continents to tame the harmful effects of globalisation. Sarkozy acknowledged the damaging effects of colonialism but he said it was not responsible for all of the continent’s ills.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Friday lay criminal charges against vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath, the party said on Thursday. Mike Waters, the DA health spokesperson, said Rath had contravened the law by masquerading as a medical doctor.
United States President George Bush’s plans to establish a European missile defence system suffered a big setback on Thursday when a Congressional committee slashed the funding. The House appropriations committee cut -million from the -million the Bush administration wants for preparatory work on the missile project in Europe.
Riaz Kadwa, charged with murdering his parents at their Crown North home in October 2005, was found guilty at the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday. Judge Fritz van Oosten described Kadwa as a ”self-confessed master of deceit” and rejected his version of the events.
At a National Credit Act conference held recently, National Credit Regulator Gabriel Davel warned credit providers the regulator would undertake a survey of loans that had been rejected and compare them with the credit bureaus’ ratings scores to see if there is a racial undertone in lending Âpractices. Davel says the third-biggest complaint to the regulator in the two months since the Act has been in force has been about the rejection of credit applications.