By the slow-moving Tapajos River, monkeys murmur in the forest and Munduruku Indians with bows and arrows tiptoe along the riverbank, hunting turtles. Two boys fish for the family lunch, not even bothering with bait. To attract the piranha, they simply bang on the side of their boat.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown was on Wednesday finalising the details of a new deal to wipe out the multilateral debts of Africa’s poorest countries after British Prime Minister Tony Blair won agreement in principle from United States President George W Bush on Tuesday in Washington.
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Three weeks after Zimbabwe launched an unpopular urban clean-up drive that has drawn widespread criticism and made thousands homeless and destitute in the height of winter, authorities on Wednesday widened the crackdown to previously white-owned farms now in the hands of blacks.
United States President George Bush is meeting with the leaders of several African nations later this month to celebrate elections held last year in each and hold them up as models of democratic progress on the troubled continent. The presidents of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger are meeting Bush.
Describing corruption as a ”pervasive and insidious evil”, Durban High Court Judge Hillary Squires sentenced businessman Schabir Shaik to an effective 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption on Wednesday.
Claims by the Congress of South African Trade Unions that the strike by Metrorail workers is predominantly white were rejected by the Federation of Unions of South Africa on Wednesday. Meanwhile, negotiations between unions and Metrorail management were under way in Johannesburg.
Hotels in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have given members of Somalia’s transitional government up to Wednesday to vacate the rooms they have occupied for almost three years, a Somalian MP said on Wednesday. Another member of the Nairobi-based transitional federal Parliament said the notice was not a surprise.
A website that specialises in storm forecasts warned on Wednesday that the Atlantic may face a major hurricane season this year. Tropical Storm Risk predicted that, on the basis of current and projected climate data, the hurricane season would be 160% above average in terms of numbers.
The Central Unions have retained South Africa’s fifth Super 14 franchise, South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen confirmed on Wednesday. However, the South-Eastern Cape franchise will play in the 2007 and 2008 Super 14, with the South African team that finishes last in 2006 dropping out to make way for them.