Tony Blair has landed a major diplomatic job as the international Middle East peace envoy, responsible for preparing the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. His role, to be announced on Tuesday, will be largely to work with the Palestinians over security, economy and governance.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday he was ready to free about 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to help President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction. The two leaders held talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, their first meeting since Islamist Hamas militants seized the Gaza Strip nearly two weeks ago.
Brewer SABMiller announced on Tuesday that its United States subsidiary, Miller Brewing Company, plans to enter into a ten-year licensed-brewing partnership with Foster’s Group. Under the new arrangement, brewing of the Foster’s Lager and Special Bitter brands sold in the US will transfer from Molson Coors of Canada to Miller’s breweries.
Sara Mampane has been waiting for the African National Congress to fulfil its promise of a new home — what she calls a "proper house", where the only corrugated iron is on the roof and the walls are made of brick — since the party came to power with the collapse of apartheid 13 years ago.
For Lesotho farmer Setsabo Mothibeli it has been too long since the rain came, as he stands desolately among dried maize stalks in the barren field he should have been harvesting. Like many subsistence farms in the small Southern African mountain kingdom, his fields would have fed about 15 people.
After a four-hour battle, Durban firefighters on Monday night brought under control a blaze that had ripped through a 32-storey building in the city centre. Three helicopters — from the police, national Ports Authority and the army — airlifted at least 70 people from the roof of the Seaboard Hotel, which caught fire at about 7pm.
Gale-force winds caused damage to houses and shacks on the Cape Peninsula, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday. Winds of up to 60km/h ripped the roofs off almost a dozen shacks in Groot Brak River. Local authorities were arranging alternative accommodation for the affected people.
France, the United States, China and 15 other nations agreed on Monday to redouble efforts to end bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region by supporting a new peace force and negotiations on a settlement. ”The international community simply cannot continue to sit by,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the end of the one-day conference.
Aborigines on Tuesday said the government was trying to steal their land under the guise of responding to a crisis that Prime Minister John Howard has labelled Australia’s own Hurricane Katrina. Canberra began deploying police and soldiers to the Northern Territory outback this week under a controversial plan to combat widespread child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities.
A growing number of investors are choosing to take their activities online in a move to better manage their assets by having an electronic record of their transactions and investments. It’s fast, cheap and efficient. And it’s a fact not lost on asset management firms. Established in 1974, Allan Gray claims it is the largest privately owned investment management company in Southern Africa.