Europe’s largest street party got under way on Sunday as festivities began in the narrow streets of London’s Notting Hill with an estimated 300Â 000 visitors coming to enjoy the first day of the annual carnival. Children and adults in elaborate costumes, many decked out with multi-coloured feathers and large wings, paraded along the carnival’s three-and-a-half mile route in west London to the sound of whistles, steel drums, and Caribbean music.
Islamists controlling much of southern Somalia warned Ethiopia on Thursday of ”full-scale war” unless it withdraws troops allegedly sent to defend the country’s weak transitional government. The warning was delivered as forces loyal to the Islamist movement advanced toward a town north of the capital, lost earlier this week to warlords reportedly backed by Ethiopian soldiers.
Two global rights groups on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the treatment of several Ethiopian prisoners detained for months since violent protests over disputed elections last year. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and London-based Amnesty International decried the conditions in which three detainees are being held.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has suggested that his detractors have lost their nerve, and asked God to calm them, in the latest verbal jab at Damascus over the the conflict in Lebanon. ”I hold my nerve and I am unflappable in the face of provocation. May God calm those who have lost their nerve,” Mubarak said in an interview to be published by the top-selling al-Ahram weekly.
Sudan’s ruling party has rejected as unacceptable a draft United Nations resolution on the deployment of UN peacekeepers to the strife-torn region of Darfur and issued a sharp warning to its sponsors, the United States and Britain. ”The draft resolution is worse than previous ones,” National Congress Party chairperson Ghazi Salah Eldin Atabani was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Juventus have lodged an appeal with a civil court to overturn their relegation for match-fixing despite a threat of extra sanctions from Italy’s football federation, a spokesperson for the club said on Thursday. A soccer tribunal ruling on the match-fixing scandal in July stripped Juve of their last two Italian titles and demoted them to the second division.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein on Thursday dismissed the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) application for an order granting it leave to broadcast live the hearings of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik. To permit live television coverage could inhibit participants in Shaik’s case, SCA President Judge CT Howie said in his judgment.
The JSE edged into the black by 73 points just after midday on Thursday after being down in early trade as traders began to eye value at the lower levels. This small fillip came after profit-taking on mining heavyweights Anglo and BHP Billiton saw the JSE end in the red by 333 points on Wednesday after two days of strong gains.
ABB, the Swiss power and automation technology group, said on Thursday that it had won a $62-million order from the South African utility Eskom to strengthen one of the region’s most important cross-border power transmission systems. Earlier this month, ABB won a $30-million contract from Eskom for equipment to help strengthen power grid reliability.
Trevor Ncube, CEO of Johannesburg-based M&G Media, which publishes the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> and <i>M&G Online</i>, has been elected, for the second time, as president of Print Media South Africa (PMSA) by its incoming board, the association said in a statement released on Thursday.