No image available
/ 7 September 2006
Rival Palestinian factions are close to forming a new power-sharing government, which Hamas expects to lead, the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said this week. A national unity government is intended to lift the international freeze on funding to the Palestinian Authority, which has left it facing an economic crisis and a wave of strikes by thousands of unpaid civil servants.
No image available
/ 7 September 2006
To get a sense of the problems besetting prisons in Côte d’Ivoire, look no further than Building C of the House of Arrest and Correction of Abidjan (Maca). The 115 detainees crowded together in this building share just one toilet, and barely manage a daily shower. Maca, the largest prison in southern Côte d’Ivoire, is home to more than 4 000 prisoners — even though the 26-year-old facility was built for just half that number.
No image available
/ 7 September 2006
Jacob Zuma’s defence appears desperate to exclude evidence seized by the state during searches of Zuma’s offices and residences in August last year — and they may still succeed in doing so. The Zuma searches were ruled unlawful by the Durban High Court after Zuma contested the validity of the search warrants.
No image available
/ 7 September 2006
On a flyer from Virgin Active (or Virgym, as Oom Thys calls it) this week: ”Class Definition”. No, your local gym is not offering Marxist political education, it just needs to explain its exotic menu of physical jerks. Perhaps Richard Branson would like to re-educate the jerk responsible for this quality customer service e-mail to a client with one of those new Virgin Money cards.
No image available
/ 7 September 2006
If you think today’s reality television shows go on forever, you have seen nothing yet. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox television is planning a new variant of the cut-price phenomenon called Forever Eden that might literally never end. Julian Borger gets square eyes.
Click on image for full-size view.
No image available
/ 6 September 2006
South Africa’s smaller cities are growing rapidly while the population growth of the nine major cities is slowing down. These trends were shown in the State of Cities Report 2006 released in Pretoria on Wednesday. Over the last five years the entire urban population has increased faster than the national population.
No image available
/ 6 September 2006
Israel said on Wednesday it would lift an eight-week-old air and sea blockade of Lebanon on Thursday, handing over control to international forces. It said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been told by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that ”international forces are ready to take over control posts”.
No image available
/ 6 September 2006
![]()
Jacob Zuma’s lawyer on Wednesday rejected the state’s invitation to allow the Pietermaritzburg High Court to decide whether documents taken in search-and-seizure raids were admissible as evidence. Advocate Kemp J Kemp told Judge Herbert Msimang that he would not be ”accepting my learned friend’s offer”.
No image available
/ 6 September 2006
A move by the Department of Health to gag its top provincial officials from commenting on HIV/Aids is an unreasonable limitation on their right to freedom of expression, two rights-monitoring groups said on Wednesday. ”If allowed to go unchallenged, the move will set an extremely negative precedent,” the Freedom of Expression Institute and Open Democracy Advice Centre said.