Botswana is pinning its Hollywood hopes on a new film based on the bestselling fiction series The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. In a controversial move, the government has gambled -million to promote the Southern African country’s star power to movie buffs around the globe.
It had to be Ghana, didn’t it? Fifty years after that country won independence, and with it ushered in hopes for a united Africa, Accra played host this week to yet another debate about African unity. At least we can take heart that this latest confab focused on the form such unity should take, rather than whether it is necessary.
Zimbabwe’s leading dissident cleric said African efforts to mediate an end to his country’s political crisis are a hopeful step and he urged the international community on Tuesday to support them. ”Let’s give it a try,” Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, told a news conference in Johannesburg.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair overrode Cabinet colleagues who had doubts about going to war against Iraq, his former press chief revealed in diaries published on Monday. The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell also gives behind-the-scenes insights into Blair’s relations with United States President George Bush.
The Italian experience of small and medium businesses will help South Africa in the 2010 Soccer World Cup and beyond, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Monday. ”Italy’s experience and culture of small, medium and family-owned businesses will help in the long term,” the minister said on the first day of the SA-Italy Business Forum.
Four men were convicted on Monday of plotting to bomb London’s transport system on July 21 2005 in a botched attempt to replicate Islamist suicide bombings that had killed 52 people two weeks earlier. Police said the men, Muslims of African origin, would have caused carnage on a similar scale to the attacks a fortnight before.
Belgian rider Geert Steegmans won the second stage of the Tour de France, a 168,5km run between Dunkirk in France and Ghent in Belgium, on Monday. The Quick Step cyclist prevailed in a bunch sprint marred by a mass pile-up that stopped a sizeable portion of the peloton in its tracks 3km from the finish.
Africa is suffering a crisis of leadership and its heads of state must show more mutual confidence and solidarity if they want to advance continental integration, the African Union’s top diplomat said on Monday. Alpha Oumar Konare, who chairs the AU Commission, was giving his analysis of an inconclusive AU summit in Ghana last week.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday predicted chaos as a result of the government’s clampdown on the business community, which has seen the prices of many goods more than halved and over 1Â 300 business people arrested.
The importance of the Proudly South African campaign is undisputed, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said about the troubled organisation on Monday. Last month the Proudly South African campaign denied media reports that the DTI had withdrawn its support.