One of the major talking points this week has been the Castle Premiership debut of female referee Deidre Mitchell in the match between Santos and Kaizer Chiefs on Sunday. While her appointment for the game is an extremely rare event worldwide, I’m left wondering: What is all the fuss about?
A deadly attack by rebels on a Chinese-run oil field in Ethiopia that left more than 70 dead is the latest example of the human and political cost of China’s growing energy interests in Africa. Tuesday’s attack on the facility left 65 Ethiopians dead as well as nine workers from China, making it the deadliest in a recent spate of killings and kidnappings aimed at Chinese firms in Africa.
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South Africa coach Mickey Arthur says the best way to stop all-conquering Australia winning their third World Cup in a row is to put the pressure on Ricky Ponting’s team from the very first ball of Wednesday’s semifinal. Two-time defending champions Australia seek to extend their 21-game winning streak and march into yet another final.
The West’s foot-dragging over aid pledges to Africa was described on Tuesday night as ”grotesque” and a threat to the lives of the world’s poor by the body set up by Tony Blair to monitor the results of Britain’s Gleneagles summit. The Africa Progress Panel said rich countries were only 10% of the way to a target set almost two years ago.
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Sri Lanka reached the World Cup final on Tuesday after Muttiah Muralitharan took four wickets to prompt a collapse by New Zealand and earn an 81-run victory for his country. New Zealand were on course to challenge Sri Lanka’s 289-5 wickets in the semifinal at Sabina Park, but lost seven key wickets for 44 runs to slump from 105-2 to 149-9.
Widespread economic growth and increased productivity in Africa have been insufficient to reduce the growing numbers of unemployed and working poor, according to new analyses prepared by the International Labour Office (ILO). New projections say Africa’s economies will have to create 11-million new jobs per year to reduce unemployment to the global average.
China may overtake the United States as the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases within months, one of the world’s leading energy analysts predicted on Tuesday. China has signed up to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but, as a developing country, it does not have a cap on its emissions.
"Events chronicled were far, far worse than I could ever have imagined. It seemed that state armed forces — whether only 5 Brigade or others too — had gone berserk in an orgy of violence against defenceless civilians." We publish an edited extract from the forthcoming book <i>Through the Darkness: A Life in Zimbabwe</i>, by Judith Garfield Todd.
Reading stories on Zimbabwe or even watching footage on television, one would be forgiven for thinking that it is a country inhabited only by men. Women hardly make the news and the issues that concern them are not deemed newsworthy. The first thing I would expect in a post-Mugabe era is the high visibility of women and women’s rights issues, writes Everjoice Win.
Recent events in Zimbabwe have shown how politics has become militarised and how the military has become politicised. At policy level, the Joint Operational Command, comprising the police, intelligence and military, has found that the internal security situation was unstable and imposed a three-month ban on all political activity.