Palestinians holding an Israeli soldier said on Tuesday that they had ended negotiations on his fate after Israel ignored an ultimatum to begin releasing prisoners. The Hamas-led militants holding Corporal Gilad Shalit had said if Israel had not begun releasing some of the 1 500 prisoners by 6am on Tuesday it would ”bear the consequences”.
Western Cape road users will soon have to pay a provincial fuel tax of between 10 and 50 cents a litre in addition to the current national levy, the media reports said on Wednesday. The money raised through the levy would be used to pay for the rehabilitation and upgrading of transport infrastructure and to develop a high quality public transport system.
The United Nations Security Council was expected to meet on Wednesday to try to craft a response to the provocative firing of up to six missiles by the North Korean regime. Tuesday’s launch was intended to cause maximum irritation to Washington — timed within minutes of the launch of the shuttle Discovery on Independence Day.
Uganda has offered a ”total amnesty” to the rebel warlord Joseph Kony, who was indicted by the international criminal court last year for crimes against humanity. The government offered the amnesty in exchange for Kony abandoning the civil war he has waged for the past 19 years, in which his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has slaughtered civilians and abducted thousands of children.
Nasa called it ”a gift to the nation”. On Tuesday the shuttle Discovery finally blasted off after several days of delays to lend a spectacular fiery flourish to the United States’s Independence Day celebrations. ”I can’t think of a better place to be on the Fourth of July,” said Steve Lindsey, the shuttle commander, moments before Discovery roared into a clear Florida sky.
We publish excerpts from the African National Congress national working committee’s (NWC) response to a South African Communist Party central committee discussion document. These excerpts provide a glimpse — but only a glimpse — of the arguments contained in the document, which is more than 7 000 words long.
The headline act at this year’s FNB Dance Umbrella is Akram Khan’s <i>Ma</i>. Khan originally trained in Indian dance, but regards his art as a confusion of styles. Veronika Peimer-Bednarova tries to make sense of it all.
Lara Foot-Newton shares her vision for the Baxter Theatre in 2005 with Veronika Peimer-Bednarova.
Marley would never have said that his message was meant only for black people, but his own upbringing ensured it holds particular relevance to those who would have known the pinch of poverty and racism.
"Sunday August 8 2004; Oswiecim, Poland. I’ve been here before. Once in person, many times in my mind. Even if you’re only a secular Jew, as I am, as Primo Levi was, it’s impossible not to come here in your bad dreams." In preparation for his one-man play <i>Primo</i>, Antony Sher visited Auschwitz.