Britain will join an international alliance to confront United States President George Bush and salvage as much as possible of an ambitious plan to reshape the United Nations and tackle world poverty next week. The head-to-head in New York on Monday comes after the revelation that the US administration is proposing wholesale changes to crucial parts of the biggest overhaul of the UN since it was founded more than 50 years ago.
The police tape fluttering gently marks the front line. On one side sits a rag-tag collection of tents, home-made placards calling for the troops to come home and a long line of white crosses representing the soldiers killed in Iraq. On the other side of the small country lane there is a smart collection of garden-style awnings filled with fold-out canvas chairs, lined with glossy placards proclaiming ”Bush Country”, ”IM4W” and ”Support Our Troops”.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has blocked a -million (about R195-million) United Nations fundraising drive to provide food and medicine to Zimbabweans hardest hit by the state destruction of urban slum housing, UN relief officials said on Friday.
Powerful Typhoon Mawar hit central Japan early on Friday, bringing heavy rain and fierce winds that left at least one person dead, two people missing and four injured, officials said. Transportation was also disrupted by the storm, leaving tens of thousands stranded.
Gerry Fitt, a leader of Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland and a fierce critic of the Irish Republican Army, died on Friday, his family said. He was 79. The cause of death was not announced, but he had a history of heart disease and had been in declining health for months.
The South African Communist Party expressed anger at the release of a letter by President Thabo Mbeki on Jacob Zuma on Friday, saying it was supposed to be an internal alliance document. In the letter, Mbeki suggests a commission of inquiry to probe claims that he and others are seeking to destroy Zuma politically.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, who heads the world body’s refugee agency, arrived in Chad’s capital on Friday from Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region across the border. He is scheduled to hold talks with President Idriss Deby as part of a 10-day assessment devoted to the conflict in Darfur.
Florida on Friday mopped up after a deadly bashing from Hurricane Katrina, and braced for another hit as the weather system swirled over the Gulf of Mexico on a track that would take it back to the storm-weary state. At least four people were killed late on Thursday as the hurricane made landfall near Miami.
The African National Congress’s political philosophy, which sees no distinction between the state and party, is partly to blame for its stance on the Oilgate saga, says opposition leader Tony Leon. He said the ANC’s mix of constant financial problems, on the one hand, with Jacobinic political ideology and pure greed on the other is a deadly combination.
Some soldiers retrenched without retraining used their combat skills in crimes such as cash heists, a military trade union official said on Friday. She was speaking to journalists in Pretoria about Sasfu’s concerns about the low representation of black soldiers in the South African National Defence Force’s middle management.