The French interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, sounded the death knell for the 50-year-old Franco-German alliance on Tuesday and suggested instead a core group of six European states. Sarkozy said the Franco-German alliance was no longer practical in an European Union of 25 states.
The Iraq counter-insurgency is forcing the Pentagon to question its military doctrine that requires forces to be able to fight two major wars at the same time, it was claimed on Tuesday. A four-yearly review of United States military power is not due until early next year, but it is already clear that the strategy is under great strain from the Iraq war.
A R14,2-million "interim maintenance" project is in the planning stage for President Thabo Mbeki’s official Tshwane home of Mahlamba Ndlovu on the Bryntirion Estate, according to Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau. Three ministerial homes are also to be built on the estate in the next two years.
Thousands of Kenyan families have been left homeless following a government decision to evict them, without compensation, from farms allegedly carved out of the Mau forest in Narok district, south-western Kenya. According to the Kenya Red Cross Society, between 20 000 and 30 000 people lost their homes.
Britain is painting a misleadingly flattering picture of its commitments to do more in the fight against poverty in Africa, a leading development group said on Tuesday. ”The British government is very good at PR, at spinning what really is going on,” said Peter Hardstaff from the World Development Movement.
South African media marked two junctures this week — one at the tech high-end of the industry; the other related to traditional small-town newspapers. In the first case, an innovative website was launched to cover the National Arts Festival under way in Grahamstown.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has agreed with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to wait for a report on Zimbabwe by a UN special envoy before taking any course of action, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reports.
British bank Barclays said on Tuesday that South Africa’s High Court had postponed a ruling on its bid to buy a majority stake in peer Absa after an apartheid reparations group filed for an injunction. The injunction by Jubilee South Africa had pushed the court’s decision back one day, to Wednesday.
Shared combs and brushes have been banned from Britain’s lower House of Commons in a bid to thwart headlice, a newspaper said on Wednesday. The Sun reported that communal hairbrushes and combs are being axed under health and safety regulations.
A court sentenced a Pakistani man to seven years in jail after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbing South Africa’s number two diplomat in Malaysia last year. Nisar Ahmad Khan (36) was sentenced to three years for his involvement in the kidnapping of South Africa’s deputy high commissioner Cornelius van Niekerk Scholtz and four years for stealing the diplomat’s cheque book, cash and cellphone.