Iran reiterated on Friday that its nuclear programme is not up for negotiation, despite possible calls by the United Nations Security Council for it to accede to demands by the UN nuclear watchdog and immediately halt all nuclear enrichment activities.
The future of Manhattan’s Ground Zero was thrown into uncertainty on Thursday after negotiations between New York authorities and the tycoon who owns the lease of the site were acrimoniously abandoned. The governor of New York state, George Pataki, accused the developer Larry Silverstein of betraying the public’s trust.
Trade unions confirmed on Friday that Transnet’s sale of Metrorail has been delayed by a month, averting a threatened four-day nationwide strike next week by workers. Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin on Thursday helped the unions to persuade Transnet to delay the move.
The United Nations war crimes tribunal on Friday fended off speculation that former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was poisoned in its custody, citing provisional tests which showed no signs of foul play. Toxicological tests found "no indication of poisoning" nor any presence in his blood of rifampicin.
Israel on Friday confirmed that the deadly H5N1 bird-flu strain had been found in thousands of poultry, as five people were admitted to hospital and the authorities moved to cull multiple flocks of fowl. Battling the country’s first outbreak of bird flu, the authorities ordered poultry in a quarantined area in the southern Negev desert to be exterminated.
A former intelligence chief and three other former high-ranking Kenyan officials suspected of involvement in Kenya’s biggest financial scandal were brought to a magistrate’s court on Friday, but their lawyers prevented them from entering a plea. President Mwai Kibaki’s administration has initiated fresh prosecutions in the Goldenberg affair.
I inhabit the cultural environment polluted by Stephen Watson’s attack on Antjie Krog, and by the commentary that it has received in the press, including in the Mail & Guardian. I have cordial collegial relations with Watson; Krog has, in recent years, become a friend. I am disturbed at the damage this unsavoury business has […]
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Desperate Housewives‘s Felicity Huffman is a joy to behold in her role as a male-to-female transexual in Transamerica and surely deserved the Oscar that went to Reese Witherspoon, writes Shaun de Waal.
The recent election has shown politicians who desert their parties during the floor-crossing window periods invariably lose out, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday. Writing in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website, Leon said the biggest losers of the recent municipal election were the floor-crossers.
The Zimbabwe government plans to push legislation through Parliament to permit it to monitor telephones and e-mail messages, local reports said on Friday. The Interception of Communications Bill is due to be debated by parliament soon, said the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. Parliament is dominated by President Robert Mugabe’s party.