About 100 women who had protested massive increases in school fees were being held by police on Friday, police and organisers of the protest said. The protesters were arrested in the second city of Bulawayo where they marched eight blocks to government education offices on Thursday to demand the lowering of school fees.
Newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set his sights on Friday on a visit to Washington to win United States support for his plan to redraw Israel’s borders and leave parts of the West Bank. Olmert, whose four-party coalition was sworn in on Thursday, will leave for the US on May 21, making his first overseas trip as prime minister.
South Africa committed R20-million to the African World Heritage Fund at its launch on Friday. Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan hosted the launch at the Cradle of Humankind heritage site, outside Johannesburg. Jordan said the conservation and preservation of heritage can be used to address the development agenda.
The transformation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation from an apartheid government mouthpiece to a non-partisan public broadcaster demonstrates the government’s resolve to encourage media freedom and diversity in South Africa, the African National Congress said on Friday.
<b>NOT QUITE THE MOVIE OF WEEK</b>: Shaun de Waal reviews what he believes to be the best of the <i>Mission: Impossible</i> franchise, <i>M:i:III</i>.
Busi Mhlongo wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to fallen musicians, writes Niren Tolsi.
With the George W Bush’s approval rating down to 33% in some polls, his lowest ever, an overt message from a musician of Neil Young’s stature could find a large audience, reports Oliver Burkeman in New York.
Cheese is a serious business in France. General de Gaulle once famously remarked that it is impossible to govern a country that produces 246 different varieties of the stuff. If any product symbolises the visceral attachment so many French people have to their terroir, it is cheese.
A Cabinet minister in Zimbabwe has categorically denied the government is inviting white farmers dispossessed during the controversial land reform campaign back to their farms, it was reported here on Friday. ”No white farmer is being invited back,” State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa told the privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper.
Unrest in Africa. Mideast insurgency and terrorism. Iran’s nuclear brinkmanship. Russian pressure politics. South American resource nationalism. Piece by piece, the global energy puzzle reveals a bleak horizon for a world frantically searching for secure oil and gas supplies.