Last Saturday, I had lunch with friends in London at a benefit for the medical school at the Arab University in Jerusalem. At home later, I watched the news on al-Jazeera: 12 more Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. There were sirens. There were young men bending to kiss the forehead of their fallen comrade, while his mother sat rocking and speechless.
Ehud Olmert lost no time in describing the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Lebanese guerrillas as an ”act of war”. That stark formulation was doubtless intended to frighten the Beirut government into reining in the Hizbullah fighters who attacked across the international border.
South Africa’s food-fortification programme is generating interest throughout the continent, but it is too early to determine the effect on the health of South Africans, a World Health Organisation affiliate said recently. In 2003 South Africa was one of four countries — the others are China, Morocco and Vietnam — that received a fortification grant from Gain, with South Africa’s largesse valued at ,8-million.
Time is running out for the World Trade Organisation. Can the WTO’s weary membership go once more into the breach after its most recent failure? The consequences of failing to achieve a Doha round agreement would be severe. The multilateral trading system, while imperfect and iniquitous in parts, is worth saving, warts and all.
Outside the morgue of Bhabha hospital two men embrace before wiping the tears from their faces. Inside lies the body of their friend and colleague, Tejas Shah, a 35-year-old salesperson whom they last saw boarding a train on the southern tip of Mumbai’s peninsula.
A suspended University of Cape Town (UCT) professor, who was involved in researching an unregistered potion marketed as an “anti-HIV treatment”, was keeping highly infectious viruses in his laboratory without following correct biosafety procedures. Professor Girish Kotwal, head of UCT’s Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, was suspended for six months.
Deadlines for signing peace agreements have come and gone, in Burundi and Darfur — two of Africa’s most vexed trouble spots — illustrating that pressure tactics are not always the answer. Arm-twisting might force warring parties to the negotiating table — and even get them to sign agreements.
With two weeks to go before their first democratic elections in more than four decades, it would be abnormal for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo not to be very, very nervous. Indeed, the many supporters of the African giant — both on the continent and beyond — are probably nervous enough for the 60-million Congolese.
The Sithengi Film and Television Market has left a bitter taste in the mouths of some filmmakers and directors, who say the pitching sessions, had effectively been hijacked by the national broadcaster. Steve Kretzmann reports.
There is a voice missing, or at least muffled, in the hubbub of claim and counter-claim that marks the first anniversary of the Glen-eagles anti-poverty initiative. One year after the G8 leaders promised to tackle Africa’s deepening crisis, there is no shortage of assessment of the gaps between what leaders of the world’s richest countries pledged and their subsequent performance.