No image available
/ 18 September 2006
When Madrid banned extremely thin models from the country’s top fashion show that began this week, it was the kind of measure that European society seemed somehow to be waiting for. The decision sparked immediate controversy among fashion professionals, politicians, in the media and on internet forums.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
Every day corporations across the globe welcome affluent executives into beautifully maintained, spotlessly clean offices. Few stop to think about the lives of the unseen, poorly paid cleaners who keep their offices this way. This week, workers from around the world stood together to focus attention on the long-running strike by South African cleaning workers.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
If anything gives the world’s second-richest man sleepless nights at his home in Omaha, Nebraska, it is the certainty that a nuclear holocaust will wipe out the planet. Warren Buffett is convinced the world will end in catastrophe — the only variable in the equation is when the big bang will happen.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
The year of waiting, the countless hours of planning — if not plotting — are over. Gordon Brown, it seems, has not just measured the curtains at No 10 Downing Street metaphorically. They have been ordered and delivered. Indeed, Brown is actually preparing to move into No 10, and not on May 4 or May 31, but possibly sooner.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
Mount Weather is a top-security underground installation an hour’s drive from Washington DC. A Cold War relic, it has been given a new lease on life since 9/11. Today, as the Bush administration wages its war on terror, Mount Weather is believed to house a ”shadow government” made up of senior Washington officials on temporary assignment.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
It’s officially been called ”one national conversation”. But in reality Heartlines, the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) R44-million moral-regeneration project, is not about dialogue. It is a one-way instruction manual for good behaviour put out by the corporation in conjunction with the non-government Mass Media Project.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
The final resting place of the last Neanderthals may have been unearthed by fossil-hunters excavating deep inside a cave in Gibraltar. Primitive stone tools and remnants from wood fires recovered from the vast Gorham’s cave on the easternmost face of the Rock suggest Neanderthals found refuge there.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
For victims of human rights abuse in Ghana, the long wait for some form of restitution may finally be at an end. This follows indications that the government will soon begin disbursing about ,5-million to people identified by the National Reconciliation Commission as requiring compensation.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure has marked a turning point in press freedom, which the Society to Defend Freedom of the Press has described as ”one of the darkest periods in Iranian history of journalism”. The society cautioned against the trend towards censorship and pressure on journalists.
No image available
/ 18 September 2006
New Zealand won a third straight women’s rugby World Cup crown when it fended off England 25-17 in the final at Commonwealth Stadium on Sunday. The Black Ferns scored four tries to two but England closed within three in the 77th minute, and not until a try in injury time by fullback Amiria Marsh did the New Zealanders start celebrating.