A third killer earthquake may be lurking beneath the Indian Ocean, seismologists say. Last Monday’s quake was caused by an increased geological stress set up by the giant earthquake in December, and they fear the process will repeat itself. Phil Cummins, a seismologist, said: "There is a chance that the next segment further to the south-east could rupture sooner than we expected. But we can’t predict the time."
South Africa’s largest land rights movement, the 20-year-old National Land Committee (NLC), has been brought to its knees by ideological infighting, financial mismanagement and an exodus of member organisations. The crisis, which was set to be debated at an emergency board meeting on Thursday, has already frightened off the foreign donors who funded the NLC’s umbrella structure since its inception.
Moussa Tanoh used to import two shipments of new car parts in to Côte d’Ivoire every month but in 2004, he only managed two all year as a protracted political crisis deepened economic woes. "Nobody buys new anymore," said Tanoh, as he hauled himself up off the floor of his Mercedes spare parts shop. "Everybody goes to the black market and buys used or stolen car parts."
Ivorian leaders head to peace talks on Sunday in South Africa with rebels charging that government troops are deploying for new attacks; a human rights group accusing the government of recruiting fighters from Liberia; and the government’s feared militia demanding French peacekeepers get out.
President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi was thrown his first curve ball in Parliament last Wednesday since his dramatic defection from the United Democratic Front, on whose ticket he ascended to the country’s top job in May last year. His appointment of the first woman inspector-general of police, Mary Nangwale, was rejected by Parliament.
”In his ‘Wrath of dethroned white males’, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba has dared to offer a biological explanation for the power structure that prevails in the new South Africa. Makgoba is perhaps the leading theoretical Africanist in our country today. I am sorry, therefore, to bother him with Eurocentric logic, but his argument represents a tautology,” writes Dan Roodt.
The policy shift towards ”abstinence-only programmes” to curb the spread of HIV/Aids could reverse significant gains made by Uganda in the fight against the pandemic, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has warned. In a new report, titled The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence-Only HIV/Aids Programmes in Uganda, HRW said the government had removed critical Aids information from primary school curricula.
”If peacetime Angola is to lift itself out of the slough of poverty, the government must open its books to scrutiny, and donors, industry and the international community need to take a tough stance to ensure this happens”, says Doug Steinberg, the outgoing country director of the humanitarian NGO, Care. He shares his views on the eve of his departure.
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Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday dismissed the elections as a ”disgusting massive fraud” and accused President Robert Mugabe of treating his country like ”his private property”. Incoming election results are showing that Mugabe’s ruling party is starting to close in on Tsvangirai’s early lead.
For fans of Michael Moore, one of the most indelible moments of the film Fahrenheit 9/11 is when Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary and the intellectual high priest of the Bush administration’s hawks, puts a generous dollop of spit on his comb before smoothing his hair for a television appearance. Iffy grooming habits are the least of Wolfowitz’s worries as he takes on the presidency of the World Bank.