At a diplomatic reception in Beijing a few years ago, the former president of Harvard, Larry Summers, dropped a spicy chicken wing into the turn-up of his trousers and continued to make small talk with finger food bobbing closer to his toes than is generally considered decent. A man who displays such a lack of social graces can still go far (for a woman it would be terminal).
”Chris McGreal has been unable to untangle the confusion and complexities of group relations in Israel. He is muddled in distinguishing between the situations of Israeli Arabs and West Bank Arabs and Jerusalem Arabs,” writes the former deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail, Benjamin Pogrund.
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Zimbabwe will this coming winter implement a drastic power-rationing programme which will see whole cities and regions of the country switched off for periods ranging up to five hours, the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company (ZEDC) said on Monday.
A meeting between Transnet unions and Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin yielded progress on Monday after another day of national strikes crippled the transport industry. ”Erwin has agreed that government will facilitate a resolution of certain pension issues related to Metrorail,” said his spokeswoman Gaynor Kast.
South Africa’s one-wicket victory over Australia in the fifth Standard Bank one-day international on Sunday was the main topic of conversation throughout the country on Monday. ”The best marketing team in the world couldn’t have sold the game of cricket as effectively,” said United Cricket Board chief executive Gerald Majola.
Tornadoes have swept through portions of the United States Midwest, killing at least three people in Missouri, blowing roofs off homes in Illinois and Arkansas, and damaging about 60% of the buildings on the University of Kansas campus. A fourth storm death was reported in Indiana.
The co-accused of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein resumed testimony on Monday in their trial over the killing of 148 people near the Shi’ite village of Dujail in 1982 following an attempt on the then president’s life. On Monday, the trial heard Mohammed Azzawi, the former senior Ba’ath party member in Dujail, among others.
Fifa has agreed not to restrict the media from online publication of World Cup photographs during the soccer tournament in Germany later this year. The governing body of world soccer and the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said on Monday they have reached an accord to allow media photos to be used.
The murder trial of the wife and four relatives of slain senior Free State official Noby Ngombane was postponed in the Bloemfontein High Court on Monday because further information had emerged in the investigation. The court agreed to a postponement until October 23, sought by the state.