"Was it fantastic to walk into it as a new director? Absolutely not," says Nerine Kahn, the new director of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. Since taking on the position at the beginning March, she has had to face irate clients who are furious over the condition of the new building into which the Johannesburg branch has moved.
Tony Blair’s recent announcement that he will hence-forward account only to God for the Iraq war makes perfect sense. Every secular reason he has concocted has turned out to be the reverse of the truth: there were no weapons of mass destruction, we are less safe from terrorism, the Iraqi people do not want the British in their country.
The government’s war against excessive pricing moved into the area of telephone call charges recently, with regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) putting the spotlight on how so-called interconnect fees raise both landline and mobile costs. Mobile call costs could be slashed by 30% if Icasa wins its battle with landline and mobile operators, according to an independent expert.
The Côte d’Ivoire electoral process is falling into place. The Independent Electoral Commission is in place and functioning. Antonio Moneteiro, the United Nations high representative for elections, left the country this week, his job done. The presidential candidates are starting to make themselves heard.
Mining magnate Mzi Khumalo has lost what is reportedly the largest damages claim in Zimbabwe’s history. This is after his company, Pemberton International Investments, the investment vehicle of Metallon Gold Corporation, was ordered to pay Zimbabwe’s Stanmarker US$7,4-million in damages for a breach of contract.
Humans have provoked the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65-million years ago, according to a United Nations report that calls for unprecedented worldwide efforts to address the slide. The report paints a grim picture of life on Earth, with declining numbers of plants, animals, insects and birds across the globe.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has stepped into the controversy between religious fundamentalists and scientists by saying that he does not believe that creationism — the Bible-based account of the origins of the world — should be taught in schools.
A stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Seine, the final touches are being put to Europe’s newest museum, a huge project celebrating and bringing to life non-Western art and heritage. Named the Musee du Quai Branly after its location, the museum will house about 300Â 000 works of tribal art.
With its surging economy and a new middle class of about 300-million, the preference gap between air and train travel is matched by a growing divide between urban and rural people. India is still a predominantly agricultural country and a decade of growth has left half a billion people behind.
In a dilapidated maternity and paediatric hospital in Diwaniyah, 160km south of Baghdad, Zahara and Abbas, premature twins just two days old, lie desperately ill. The hospital has neither the equipment nor the drugs that could save their lives. On the other side of the world, in a federal courthouse in Virginia, United States, two men are found guilty of fraudulently obtaining -million intended for the reconstruction of Iraq.