United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded on Wednesday that
Sudan’s government disarm militias terrorising people in Sudan’s Darfur. In a report to the Security Council, Annan warned that militias were still roaming Darfur, chasing people from their homes and harassing others in camps
About 50 children per day are raped in South Africa as the country struggles with the legacy of apartheid, HIV/Aids and an influx of sexual material into a society that remains somewhat puritanical. Police reports recount girls as young as five being raped, sometimes by boys who are barely into their teens.
Japan and France have agreed to develop the technology for a new supersonic commercial aircraft that could cut the flying time between Tokyo and New York by almost half to six hours. Japan’s trade and industry ministry said the countries would each invest about 100m yen ( 000) a year over three years on research for the plane.
One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern history, the ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have been found, 65 years after it was apparently stolen from the Mexican police. The daughter of a former secret service agent claims she has the steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained with the blood of the Russian revolutionary.
As a president with a penchant for foreign policy, Thabo Mbeki probably envisaged that his toughest speeches, his defining moments, would come as he spoke at the podium of the United Nations or on the panels of the G8. Instead, his defining moment, his toughest speech, came in Cape Town this week in Parliament.
Oprah is a Zulu. Her words, not Lemmer’s. "I feel so at home here," she told the press during her visit last week. Why? "I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am Zulu." Dok Rabie says he’s thrilled for Oprah and her long-lost neefies en niggies, but isn’t sure how she got such a detailed diagnosis since DNA testing can only identify four large racial groups.
Jacob Zuma took the first step in a thousand-mile journey this week when he made it clear that his sights are still fixed on the country’s presidency. Zuma has until the African National Congress’s next national conference in 2007 to mount a challenge for the ANC leadership, as a bridge to the highest office.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Israel after a dispute over Israel’s sale of drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — to China, according to news reports. The US has suspended cooperation on several development projects and frozen delivery of night-vision equipment.
Six masked men who took 70 students and three teachers hostage at an international school in northwestern Cambodia on Thursday have released some of their captives, a government spokesperson and police said. The men have also demanded a 12-seat van from authorities.
The military tribunals of suspected terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay were a ”tremendous failure”, a United States military lawyer told Congress on Wednesday. Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift was testifying before the first full Senate hearing on the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees since the ”war on terror” began.