The head of Southern African Catholics says he and other church leaders have told President Thabo Mbeki to impose sanctions against President Robert Mugabe’s government but the South African leader will not do it because he lacks the political will.
Former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow on Tuesday offered potentially damaging testimony against his former boss, Jeffrey Skilling, as the trial of the energy firm’s two highest-ranking executives reached a critical stage. He also broke down at one point while recounting the events that led to his wife, Lea, being sent to prison for a year.
The United States ambassador to Baghdad conceded on Tuesday that the Iraq invasion had opened a Pandora’s box of sectarian conflicts which could lead to a regional war and the rise of religious extremists who ”would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child’s play”.
Hidden from the world, deep in the endless ruins of the Chechen capital Grozny, a young man smiles at his mother through a cage door. She holds the key, but Iriskhan’s true jailer is the madness he has suffered since the war in his homeland began just over a decade ago. Iriskhan was 18, when Russian troops first laid siege to Grozny, his mother Raisa says.
Gordon Parks, who captured the struggles and triumphs of black America as a photographer for Life magazine and then became Hollywood’s first major black director with The Learning Tree and the hit Shaft, has died, his family said. He was 93.
In two seemingly unrelated events, the east of Zimbabwe was rocked recently — first by a violent earthquake and then by the election of Manicaland local hero Arthur Mutambara as the president of the pro-Senate faction of the Movement for Democratic Change.
Former United States president Bill Clinton this week said he supports mandatory HIV testing in countries with high prevalence, provided people are willing to participate in the testing programmes and that the country can provide access to anti-retroviral drugs and ensure HIV-positive residents would not experience discrimination.
Up to 20 000 Africans are trying to reach Europe from camps in Western Sahara and Mauritania, the governor of Spain’s Canary Islands said on Wednesday. Citing a Spanish police report, Jose Segura told AFP: ”After an evaluation, there are maybe 15 000 or 20 000; it’s very difficult to put a precise figure on it.”
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Concert pianist Lily Dumont Mindus, who performed around the world after fleeing Nazi Germany, has died. She was 94. Mindus — who died at her home on Monday — performed as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra by the time she was 15.