South African mediators have deemed that laws passed by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo last month do conform to the country’s peace plan, dealing a blow to rebels who had refused to start disarming and said the laws were inadequate. Opposition parties claimed that the laws, passed without approval by the Parliament, would restrict the number of people eligible to vote in elections.
The Black Angel by John Connolly (Hodder & Stoughton) Connolly takes his Charlie Parker series from the serial-killer realm towards supernatural horror. Killer Louis is searching for his junkie-whore cousin and her abductors; Parker comes to realise that this disappearance is part of an older mystery — one linked to a church of bones in […]
The British team who aided the rescue of seven Russian submariners from the depths of the Pacific flew home on Monday night, as details emerged of the crew’s horrifying 76 hours spent in the icy dark, their vessel enmeshed in a fishing net. Pictured strolling the grounds of their hospital, the crew said they had survived on only three to four gulps of water a day.
A smartly-dressed young mother, the head of the healthy children’s committee, stands before the parent-teacher association to demand that fizzy drinks be removed from the school vending machines. Moments later she is negotiating a deal to buy a large quantity of marijuana to sell to teenagers and their parents.
The reputation of the United Nations was dealt a severe blow on Monday when an independent inquiry accused one of its most senior officials, Benon Sevan, of corruptly receiving  184 to help to facilitate an oil deal. Sevan, a UN official for 40 years, resigned on Sunday ahead of publication of the report. He denies the claims.
On Tuesday, South Africans can celebrate National Women’s Day for the 11th time, in remembrance of the 20Â 000 women of all races who marched on August 9 1956 to the Union Buildings, to protest the extension of pass laws for African women. The Mail & Guardian Online asked some South Africans about the meaning of Women’s Day.
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At least 10 people have drowned and more are missing after weekend flooding that destroyed a bridge and a residential area of the town of Jalingo in north-eastern Nigeria, a government official said on Monday. Nigerian press reports said that as many as 50 people may have drowned.
A United Nations human rights expert on Monday sharply criticised major African leaders, saying their failure to condemn President Robert Mugabe’s housing demolition campaign in Zimbabwe is tantamount to a ”cover-up”. ”The silence of major governments in Africa continues to be shocking,” Miloon Kothari told journalists.
While a strike by 75% of South Africa’s gold miners continues, gold miner AngloGold Ashanti on Monday announced a higher wage increase for its employees. About 80Â 000 mineworkers belonging to the National Union of Mineworkers walked off the job on Sunday, the first strike in the industry since 1987.