The death and extraordinary worldwide outpouring of grief and ecstatic praise at the burial of Pope John Paul II in Rome brings the issue I raised on agnosticism recently to an unexpected focus. So what is this agnosticism? Being less than confident in my own understanding of the condition that I had staked a claim to, I took the precaution of looking it up in the dictionary.
Almost 11-million children in developing countries die before the age of five, most of them from causes that are preventable in wealthier countries, the World Bank said in a report. About 2 000 of these children die in a week, said Francois Bourguignon, the bank’s chief economist.
China refused to apologise for anti-Japanese protests on Sunday, its foreign minister Li Zhaoxing telling his Japanese counterpart: ”The Chinese government has never done anything for which it has to apologise to the Japanese people.” The Japanese Freign Minister, Nobutaka Machimura, had flown to Beijing hoping to improve mutual relations, which have fallen to their lowest point for 33 years.
Construction of large dams in developing countries would be subsidised under European commission proposals, despite protests from environmental groups and institutions such as the World Bank. The large-dam subsidy is part of a package of proposals to give better treatment to renewable energy projects.
Sunday Times correspondent Christina Lamb did not expect, when she went to interview the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho almost two years ago, that their conversation would end up with her as the inspiration for his next book. But as Coelho launches his latest book in 83 countries and 42 languages, he has revealed that a conversation with Lamb in Tarbes, France, gave him the idea for his heroine.
Weeks of feverish speculation and intrigue in Rome will enter their final phase on Monday when 115 cardinals begin to elect a new pope in the most exclusive and secret ballot in the world. With no obvious successor, the bookmaker William Hill on Sunday put Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Bavarian-born enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy under the old pope, known as God’s rottweiler, in front at 7-2.
Fifty-two European Union long-term election observers flew into Ethiopia on Friday, officials said, to act as the "eyes and ears" of the mission — one month ahead of the national elections. Rafael Lopez Pintor, deputy chief observer said that the observers were the core element of the EU mission to assess Ethiopia’s third-ever democratic ballot.
As the death toll from the Marburg epidemic in Angola passed 200, it emerged that cases of the deadly haemorrhagic fever had been present in the country since October last year. The disease was identified only last month. A spokesperson for the United Nations Transitional Coordination Unit in Luanda said the high levels of child mortality common in every rainy season had masked the presence of a new disease.
A letter from a teacher tells about a controversy surrounding two setworks in an ex-model-C school in Bramley, Johannesburg.
Dimeo-Phoofolo-Yeki, a teacher from Mount Fletcher, writes about the day they celebrated the official opening of their new school.