"The idea that you are a moderniser just because you can appear on television without a tie is wrong. It is not just about not wearing ties." So said a man called Tim Yeo, a British Conservative Party MP who, along with what seems to be every man and his dog, is a contender to succeed Michael Howard as Tory leader. It is depressing to see how low British politics has stooped.
Racial tension and anti-foreign sentiment grew in Kenya this week as outrage continued following the release of a white farmer who confessed to killing a Maasai game ranger. The country’s attorney general, decided there wasn’t enough evidence against Tom Cholmondeley, a member of Kenya’s most prominent white settler dynasties, the Delameres, to sustain a murder charge.
What kind of higher education system do we want, and what is actually emerging? These are surely the fundamental questions beneath the noise engendered by the government’s intention to cap student enrolment numbers at all tertiary institutions, starting from next year. An equally urgent question concerns who speaks for higher education.
Trucks, socks and even soft drink cans are being pressed into service by Zimbabwean gold smugglers desperate to avoid trading their treasure for worthless currency at rock-bottom rates. One man’s favourite method involves putting his gold dust into an opened Coke can.
Last October 13-year-old Iman al-Hams was shot and killed by an Israeli army unit in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. She had 17 bullets in her body, and three in her head. Iman is one of 654 Palestinian children killed in the occupied territories since September 2000. How many Israeli university lecturers have opposed the state’s racist and colonial policies, ask Ronnie Kasrils and Victoria Brittain.
Last Saturday afternoon at the Palais des Sports in Paris, a dapper aristocrat called Philippe de Villiers assembled about 5 000 people who presumably had other things to do. His posters, plastered everywhere, were eloquent: ”We all,”’ they said, ”have a good reason to vote no.”
A £2,2-billion pipeline that will deliver a million barrels of crude oil a day to the Mediterranean Sea, and is set to become a vital gateway for central Asian energy resources to the West, opened on Wednesday. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline will run for 1 760km from the Azerbaijani capital through Georgia to the Turkish port, and through two of the most politically turbulent countries in the region.
It could be at least five years before Iraqi forces are strong enough to impose law and order on the country, the International Institute of Strategic Studies has warned. The think tank’s report said that Iraq had become a valuable recruiting ground for al-Qaeda, and Iraqi forces were nowhere near close to matching the insurgency.
Jose Mourinho believes John Terry is worth a world record transfer fee of at least £50-million, although he stressed that the Chelsea captain was not for sale at any price. Mourinho described Terry as the world’s best central defender and feels his value exceeds the record £47,2-million that Real Madrid paid for Zinédine Zidane in 2001.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned Europe’s leaders this week that failure to embark on reform of the continent’s underperforming economy would put the credibility of monetary union at risk. The Paris-based OECD said Europe had run out of excuses to explain away its poor recent record.