Somalia’s nearly powerless interim government said on Friday it wants to postpone this weekend’s peace talks with an Islamic militia that has seized control of nearly all of southern Somalia, saying the group has become increasingly radical. The talks were expected to be a move toward international acceptance for the militia.
Israel bombed the offices of Hamas lawmakers, destroyed a bridge and fired a tank shell that killed one Palestinian on Friday as part of a Gaza Strip offensive aimed at forcing militants to release a captured soldier. Israeli forces withdrew overnight from central Gaza after two days of fighting, and an army statement said the troops had ”currently completed their activities in the area”.
Sri Lanka’s navy rained mortar shells on Tamil rebel positions in the island’s restive east on Friday, after suspected snipers killed one sailor and injured another as sporadic attacks raise fears of renewed war. The Tamil Tiger rebels said none of their fighters were killed by the mortars, but said they clashed with an army unit in their territory in the eastern district of Batticaloa,
United States President George Bush was expected to press President Vladimir Putin at a weekend G8 summit over concerns the Russian leader is reining in the rights of the country’s opposition and media. Pledging to ”continually remind Russia” that good ties with the West depend on sharing common democratic values, Bush was due to arrive in St Petersburg from Germany on Friday.
When the novelty of astronauts on Mars begins to wear off, some time in 2020, historians will note that it took humanity 120 years to wobble into the air in a Kitty Hawk, go faster than sound, ride into space, walk on the moon and begin colonising the red planet.
When Manchester United were last in South Africa, in 1993, the club were on a high. A campaign driven by Eric Cantona had seen them crowned inaugural Premier League winners — their first English top division title in 26 years. They then lost to Arsenal at Ellis Park in a match marred by referee Errol Sweeney’s dismissal of United skipper Bryan Robson.
The World Cup was an absorbing diversion from the bad news that dominates our attention. Despite the manic nationalism and its inherent tribalism, part of the naive beauty of the past weeks has been the sense that for once the human race was looking in the same direction.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress had initially stopped glorifying politicians in place names — like airports — but had now turned the clock back to the days of the National Party (NP) with the proposed renaming of the Johannesburg International airport, said official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon in his weekly internet column <i>SA Today</i> on Friday.
Independent music labels, who have seen their market share come under pressure in the last decade as the industry goliaths merged, have struck back. After a lengthy court battle, a European court surprised just about everyone by annulling the European Union’s approval of the 2004 Sony BMG merger, which created the world’s second-biggest music company.
Do not fret. Everything will be in place by 2010. Everything. The stadiums will be in place. The trains and taxis will be in place. Naturally it is possible that the stadiums will be in place somewhere else, a decimal on the GPS display overlooked, to provide concrete amphitheatres in which demagogue dassies harangue termites and sun-bleached Pick ‘n Pay packets.