The South African government lacks the political will to address the high levels of violent crime in the country, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Sunday. DA leader Tony Leon said the minister of safety and security’s remark that people who whinge about crime should leave the country is reflective of a government who has lost touch with the unspeakable horrors of crime.
More than 800 North Koreans are dead or missing after major rain storms and flooding that damaged homes and farmland, a pro-North newspaper published in Japan reported from Pyongyang on Monday. Three major storms drenched North Korea in July, washing away crops and raising the possibility of famine in a reclusive country that already battles chronic food shortages.
The huge, fragile-looking human towers built by groups from eastern Spain known as castellers were at the centre of controversy at the weekend after a 12 year-old-girl died falling off one. Mariona Galindo died of head injuries after falling from a nine-storey human tower at her home town of Mataró, north-east Spain.
A United Nations ceasefire initiative for Lebanon ran into almost immediate trouble on Sunday night after it was rejected by key Arab countries and provoked Hezbollah’s deadliest strike on Israel so far. The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, issued a sobering warning that she expected fighting to continue once the text was formally adopted on Monday or Tuesday.
If it weren’t so ominous, we’d all still be laughing at Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Johnny de Lange’s claim that granting same-sex couples the right to marry "could create a huge social cohesion deficit". No amount of politically correct gobbledygook can disguise the statement’s homophobia, writes Marianne Thamm.
We in the media hold ourselves up as guardians of the greater good and as supplicants to the Constitution. A preliminary study focusing the camera on the state of women in the industry shows how far we still have to go. The survey’s portrayal is not flattering. One male editor assessed a woman trainee by asking whether she was "man enough" for the job, write Ferial Haffajee.
We celebrate National Women’s Day, as we rightly should, every year. But how do we deal with the fact that every day the bodies, minds and dignity of thousands of women are violated at the hands of their partners, in their own homes? Domestic violence has risen dramatically in post-apartheid South Africa, and by all accounts we are one of the most violent societies in the world.
Think of it as the Ogies faktor. Crude oil, which had been brought at some cost from the coast to be stored as a strategic reserve in disused coal mines at Ogies, was later made available on a preferential basis to the Sasol/Total-owned Natref refinery at Vereeniging.
July was the grimmest month for conflict prevention globally in three years, according to the respected International Crisis Group, which is an independent NGO working to resolve deadly conflict. In 36 months of publishing its monthly Crisis Watch the ICG said in a statement that it has not recorded such severe deteriorations in so many conflict situations as in the past month.
Crucial peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army will resume on Monday in Juba, according to Riek Machar, the chief mediator and southern Sudanese vice-president. "I am optimistic that this time they will come up with a positive result because I have seen the commitment of the Ugandan people," Machar told reporters.