United States President George Bush’s ”war on terror” rhetoric has strengthened terrorist groups by helping them to create a shared identity, the British Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, warned on Monday. The Foreign Office reportedly asked politicians and diplomats to drop the phrase last year.
The financier and philanthropist George Soros has entered the debate about United States policy on Israel, accusing George Bush’s administration of adopting a hopeless strategy towards the Palestinians partly because of the influence wielded in Washington by the pro-Israeli lobby.
A protected rainforest in one of the world’s richest biodiversity hotspots has suffered an alarming collapse in amphibians and reptiles, suggesting such havens may fail to slow the creatures’ slide towards global extinction. Conservationists in Costa Rica used records dating from 1970 to show that species of frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and salamanders have plummeted on average 75%.
Senior Democratic figures are defecting from Hillary Clinton’s camp to her main rival, Barack Obama, in the 2008 race for the White House, according to detailed financial disclosures released on Monday. Among Obama’s contributors were a dozen former fundraisers for Bill Clinton and at least four members of his administration.
Black economic empowerment (BEE) in South Africa, climate change and Anglo American’s contribution to wider development are among the issues that are fundamental to the future of its business, Anglo chairperson Sir Mark Moody Stuart said on Tuesday at the group’s annual general meeting in London.
Hannah Botha, one of South Africa’s veteran actors and a star of M-Net’s soap opera Egoli, has died at the age of 84. Botha died in Johannesburg on the morning of April 16, Beeld newspaper reported. She was admitted to hospital at the weekend as she was not feeling well.
The difference in asking and selling prices in the property market is back to normal levels, said the MD of Homenet, David Rogers, on Tuesday. ”Clear evidence that the property market has settled … is the fact that the difference between asking and selling prices has dropped back to normal levels of between 5% and 10% in most areas,” Rogers said.
The Cape Town Environmental Protection Association (Cepa) is to drop its court case seeking to stop the demolition of the Green Point Stadium, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Tuesday. The Cape Town unicity’s legal team said Cepa’s lawyers had conceded that the demolition could not be stopped.
Strong desert winds whipped up a severe sandstorm that engulfed Cairo and other parts of Egypt on Tuesday, forcing the closure of Cairo International Airport due to poor visibility. Cairo’s airport authorities announced at 8am GMT that visibility was reduced to 100m, leading to the cancellations of more than 15 departures.
South Africa was shocked by the shooting rampage at the United States’s Virginia Tech University, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. The event also triggered shock and sympathy in the rest of the world, along with questions over gun culture in the US.