Walk around Rangoon and you’d never guess you were living in one of the world’s most brutal regimes. The military presence doesn’t feel overbearing. In plain clothes, though, lurk military intelligence agents. They are everywhere. And then there are the informers on street corners and at meeting places.
Sudan’s only English-language newspaper, the Khartoum Monitor, has been ordered to cease publication while its licence is reviewed, the newspaper’s editor said on Sunday. William Ezekiel said the Supreme Court had decided to review a 2003 court case finding the newspaper guilty of crimes against the state.
The South African, Mozambican and Zimbabwean ministers responsible for the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park held an encouraging meeting at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on Friday, said Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk on Sunday.
Nelson Mandela and international music stars pressed the world’s richest nations to save lives with increased action against HIV/Aids and poverty at a benefit concert under the midnight sun in Norway’s Arctic. ”Let every child be a healthy child,” Mandela told the cheering crowd of almost 18 000. ”We know what to do and how much it will cost. We now need leadership, vision and political courage.”
Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K. For, without doing anything wrong, he was arrested one fine morning. So begins The Trial, whose lonely protagonist stumbles into a judicial nightmare orchestrated by a malign society. On United States campuses, thousands of freshmen read Kafka’s novel every year.
Mike Tyson’s career apparently ended in yet another shocker on Saturday night when he quit on the stool after taking a beating in a foul-filled sixth round against unheralded Kevin McBride. Tyson lost for the third time in his last four fights, and once again he faded badly as the rounds went on before deliberately head butting McBride.
African National Congress (ANC) MP James Ngculu ousted Western Cape ANC chairperson Ibrahim Rasool from his post following an election at the party’s provincial congress on Saturday. Ngculu, who chairs the National Assembly’s health committee, won the election by 274 to 259 votes.
The squeaky-clean image of tennis is at risk as the sport braces itself for a court case which threatens to expose match-fixing by top players. Irakli Labadze, a Georgian last year ranked 42nd in the world, will be accused at a court hearing in Austria this week of conspiring with a professional gambler to make money by ”throwing” a match.
An international film team which apparently disappeared while on assignment in a remote part of Namibia has been found safe in a bizarre case said to involve a Hollywood sex guru, a Russian Rambo, a British businessman and African witchcraft.
South Africa beat Uruguay 134-3 in the one-off rugby Test played at the Absa Stadium in East London on Saturday afternoon. The Springboks led 56-3 at halftime. The result represents a Springbok record for points scored in a Test match, surpassing the 101-0 thrashing dished out to Italy in Durban in 1999.