When the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved its latest report on global warming two weeks ago, questions about political arm-twisting were immediately asked. In a last-minute wrangling, scientists were left with no option but to remove what some deemed critical parts of the report. Critics then accused the panel of toning down some of the real effects of climate change.
Africa’s ills would vanish if the West and other partners poured billions of aid money into its coffers, conventional wisdom goes. But what this view overlooks is the inability of many African governments to implement projects designed, as the cliché goes, to make poverty history.
President Thabo Mbeki’s bid to broker a political settlement in Zimbabwe could be an uphill battle, given this week’s insistence by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF that there can be no talks before the opposition changes its ways. An official in the Zanu-PF’s information department said the thinking in the party is that ”elections are around the corner and people will do their talking through the ballot”.
In a bid to promote Jacob Zuma, his key backers in KwaZulu-Natal have sparked a potentially counter-productive war with members of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and its leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Ironically, the move could dilute Zuma’s support in rural KwaZulu-Natal, and among IFP members who sympathise with his battle for the African National Congress presidency.
Jacob Zuma sought this week to put a more refined spin on his reputation for crudely mobilising Zulu support, arguing that South Africa needs a leader who “understands the issues” of ethnicity. Speaking to the Cape Town Press Club, he attempted to counter the perception that he is exploiting the prejudices of poor and less-educated constituencies.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday his intelligence officials had information that BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped more than a month ago in Gaza, was ”still alive”. ”I believe he is still alive. Our intelligence services have confirmed to me that he is alive,” Abbas told reporters during a visit to Stockholm, saying he had received the information ”in the last three days”.
A humanitarian catastrophe is looming in Somalia unless heavy fighting subsides and access for relief aid is opened up, a United Nations official said on Thursday. ”Unless something is done, the humanitarian crisis is going to turn into a catastrophe very soon,” Eric Laroche, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Somalia, told journalists.
Warders at Krugersdorp Prison told parliamentarians on Thursday their colleagues might have used excessive force when three inmates died after assaults that took place behind the walls. An oversight committee that spoke to both warders and inmates following the weekend incidents said warders were deeply sorry about what had happened.