Almost three-quarters of Britons are happy to give up civil liberties to make us safer from terrorist attack, according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll. Having seen the all-too-real threat of the July bombings, 73% are ready to pay the price, ready to let their protectors do whatever has to be done.
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Thousands of Sunni demonstrators rallied in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Monday to denounce Iraq’s new Constitution a day after negotiators finished the new charter without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs. Sunni leaders have urged their community to defeat the charter in a nationwide referendum on October 15.
Ziba Jiyane, founder of the newly established National Democratic Convention, paid a visit to former National Party leader FW de Klerk on Monday to inform him ”of his plans to establish a new centre-right party based on Christian family values, participatory democracy and free-market principles.”
Soweto’s spacious Ubuntu Kraal will be abuzz with ”cheeky noses” and ”extraordinary finishes” when Soweto’s first wine festival runs from Friday to Sunday. As part of the South African Wine Industry Trust’s (Sawit) drive to promote wine locally, the festival will be an ”elegant introduction to the juice of the Earth”, Sawit chairperson Gavin Pieterse said at a media launch on Monday.
Photographer Horst Tappe, whose portraits of literary and artistic luminaries included Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Vladimir Nabokov and Alfred Hitchcock, has died, a friend of the artist said on Monday. He was 67. Tappe died on August 21 in Vevey, Switzerland, after a long battle with cancer.
Hurricane Katrina pounded vulnerable New Orleans with howling winds on Monday, damaging the roof of the Superdome stadium where thousands had sought refuge, knocking out power, flooding streets and threatening a wide swath of the United States Gulf Coast.
The Gauteng department of public transport, roads and works announced on Monday that it will be increasing the pace of conversion of minibus taxi permits to operating licences. In the next few months, it plans to convert 40 000 permits to operating licences in the province.
The author of a book that helped trigger the 1998 sacking of former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim died on Monday of diabetes, the official Bernama news agency said. Khalid Jafri was the author of <i>50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Be PM</i>.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa, on Monday said week-long talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is mulling expelling Harare for debt arrears, are by no means over. Officials from the lending arm of the World Bank began talks with Zimbabwean officials last Monday over its debt arrears.