United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is sure a UN human rights council would be able to work with the United States, even if the US were to vote against its being established. Annan was speaking after meeting former president Nelson Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
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The Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille became Cape Town’s new mayor on Wednesday after a council meeting, held to elect a mayor, a speaker as well as other portfolios. Making multiparty democracy succeed in Cape Town will be a huge challenge, Zille said in her acceptance speech.
Nigerian separatist rebels threatened to step up their attacks on foreign-owned oil facilities on Wednesday after dashing hopes that their three Western hostages would soon be released. A spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta confirmed in a statement that the hostages had been split up and warned of imminent raids across the region.
Slobodan Milosevic will be buried in Belgrade, his lawyer announced on Tuesday night, ending days of speculation about what would happen to the remains of the former Serbian president. The dictator’s body will be flown from Amsterdam airport to the Serbian capital at about lunchtime on Wednesday, allowing what supporters called a ”dignified” funeral to take place.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday reported massive bird deaths in two regions in Eritrea, two weeks after it warned that the Horn of African nation was at risk of bird flu infection. WHO representative Andrew Kosia said that wild fowl had died in the coastal area of the Red Sea region and several chickens had died in the western region of Gash Barka.
Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, on Wednesday denied involvement in mass reprisals ordered against a village after the ousted Iraqi leader escaped assassination there in 1982. ”I arrested no one, it was the security services that were in charge” of operations in Dujail, Barzan said as the trial of Saddam and seven co-accused resumed before the Iraqi high tribunal.
Most Indian Ocean coral reefs which were hit by the December 2004 tsunami escaped serious damage, but their full recovery could be hampered by humans, the World Conservation Union warned on Wednesday. Most of the ocean’s tsunami-affected coral reefs could recover within five to ten years.
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A police commissioner who questioned former deputy president Jacob Zuma after he allegedly raped a woman was accused of lying in the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday. Zuma’s lawyer Kemp J Kemp said it was ”highly improbable” that Commissioner Norman Taioe forgot to put in his statement that Zuma had shown him the guest bedroom at his house.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was firmer in noon trade on Wednesday, buoyed by futures-related buying ahead of Thursday’s closeout. By 11.49am, the all-share index added 0,73%. Resources rallied 1,23%, with the gold- and platinum-mining indices jumping 1,96% and 2,49% respectively.
American writer Dan Brown returned to the witness stand on Wednesday for a third day of questioning about the writing of his best-selling thriller The Da Vinci code. Brown has already been quizzed about everything from his wife’s handwriting to the word-processing program he uses.