Osama bin Laden issued an ominous warning on Sunday, apparently seeking to justify attacks on civilians in the West and calling on his supporters to open up a new front in al-Qaeda’s struggle. Referring to current events, he spoke about the Palestinians’ election of a Hamas government and urged his supporters to open up a new front in Sudan.
Environment has forever been a lip-service ministry, given usually to some also-ran politician, the present incarnate Marthinus van Schalkwyk being a refugee from a defunct political party. But there are now signs that it is going mainstream. The Treasury has tabled a discussion paper that seeks to move the environment from the periphery to the centre of economic policy-making.
Genocide in Rwanda had been under way for 48 hours when 36-year-old Monique was told by a friend she would be killed. Monique fled, but her 12-year-old niece, Geraldine, was raped that night, and took years to die. ”Aids is the second genocide,” says Monique, who lost 27 members of her close family in 1994.
In the al-Shifa hospital, the walls are decrepit and dirty. The elevators are broken. It is a sign of the times in Gaza City, brought to its knees by the international community’s refusal to do business with a Hamas-led government. ”If this continues, the majority of our services will cease to operate in two weeks’ time,” said Dr Jumaa al-Saqqa, the spokesperson at the impoverished Gaza Strip’s main hospital.
There have been some who have implied that the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s re-examination of the environmental impact system is somehow indicative of a weakened commitment to the environmental impact assessment process. Nothing could be further from the truth, writes Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
About 59 buses were set alight at a bus depot in Umlazi, south of Durban, at about 3.30am on Sunday, KwaZulu-Natal police said. ”The damage is estimated to [be] far over R20-million,” said spokesperson Captain Vincent Ndunge. About 155 buses were on the site.
Authorities in Indonesia’s densely populated Central Java province said on Sunday surface tremors and multifaced quakes continue on Mount Merapi — one of the world’s most active volcanoes — and warned that a major eruption could take place in a few days.
South Africa’s lumbering gold-mining industry is smiling broadly as commodity prices hit quarter-century highs on world markets, opening up new frontiers once thought financially unviable. Gold charged to a new high of an ounce in London on Thursday before cooling off to finish the week on Friday at ,50.
Africa’s last absolute monarch has invited banned opposition parties to enter the political playing field in Swaziland, speaking publicly on the issue for the first time in a rare interview. King Mswati III this week will celebrate 20 years since he ascended to the throne at the age of 18 in the small mountainous kingdom.
Suzaan van Biljon put such a mammoth effort into winning her third title in the 200m individual medley at the Telkom South African National Swimming Championships in Durban on Saturday that she could barely stand afterwards. Gerhard Zandberg bagged the 100m freestyle title on Saturday.