The presidents of Sudan and Eritrea met on Monday for the first time in five years, setting the stage for landmark peace talks aimed at ending the simmering civil conflict in eastern Sudan. Eritrean President Assaias Afeworki and his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir were expected to hold extensive talks in Khartoum.
An African woman recently asked me why I didn’t just call a local, supposedly black company, with feminist credentials to boot, to do what the traditional removal companies — Stuttafords, stuff like that — would charge me a fortune to do when I had to move house. So I did.
Ingo Preminger, a literary agent, producer of the film MASH and brother of the late filmmaker Otto Preminger, has died. He was 95. Preminger began his career as an attorney in Vienna, Austria, but fled the Nazis with his family in 1938 and moved to New York.
British play The History Boys, Alan Bennett’s wise, witty and warmhearted dissection of education in his homeland, was named best play at the 2006 Tony Awards and received six Tonys in all — more than any other production. The other top winner on Sunday night was the fast-moving musical Jersey Boys.
There are plans to appoint senior Zimbabwe military officers to the ruling Zanu-PF’s top decision-making body, the politburo, Zimbabwe’s The Standard newspaper has revealed. President Robert Mugabe appears intent on forging ahead with plans to militarise all state institutions ahead of his retirement.
The JSE was in negative territory at midday on Monday after a quiet morning’s trade. Lower commodity prices and futures-related selling ahead of Thursday’s close out were both weighing on the local bourse. By 12.05pm, the all-share index shed 1,62%. The resources and gold-mining indices tumbled 2,16% and 2,7% respectively.
Rand Merchant Bank has entered into a loan agreement with two international banks to implement an affordable housing-loan scheme for low-income earners. Spokesperson Kevin Wiles said on Monday that the multimillion-rand scheme was to benefit South Africans earning between R2Â 000 and R8Â 000 per month.
United States officials warned on Monday the season’s first tropical storm could unleash ”life-threatening” rains as Cuban officials evacuated 25 000 people from Alberto’s path. About 400 people were evacuated in Havana where authorities are wary of storm damage to the old and often fragile housing stock in a densely populated city of more than two million.
Zimbabwe has signed a .3-billion deal with China to set up coal mines and three thermal power stations, a state newspaper reported on Monday. Zimbabwe’s economically ravaged electricity supplier has over the past three months resorted to extensive power cuts for up to six hours as it battles acute power shortages.
A blind Belgian man on Saturday claimed a place in the record books after completing a tour of France in a light aeroplane. Luc Costermans, a 41-year-old former businessman blinded two years ago in an accident, said he hoped to make it into the <i>Guinness World Records</i> book for his tour of the country, completed on Friday.