Domestic employers, seasonal employers, farmers and their workers contributed R40,9-million to the Unemployment Insurance Fund during the 2003/04 financial year, according to Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana. This figure has already jumped to R68-million for the categories of employers and workers in the period from April 1, 2004 to January 31, 2005.
The custom of paying a bride price — referred to in Swaziland as lobola — is a longstanding tradition in this Southern African country, which is also home to Africa’s last absolute monarchy. But changing times and social trends are bringing the custom into question — among men as well as women.
Walking in the eerie darkness engulfing Noah’s Ark, a centre that children in northern Uganda escape to for fear of being kidnapped by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), it is easy to see why so many in the region are eager for peace. Although a handful of the several hundred children who gather here every night are now singing sweetly for a group of visitors, the 19-year battle between government and the LRA has scarred their lives.
This is a tale of one war, two anniversaries, three different demonstrations — and inconsistencies, contradictions and civilian deaths that are too numerous to count. On April 18 2003, tens of thousands of Sunni and Shia protesters took to the streets of Baghdad to call for the Americans to leave Iraq. Two years later, the United States is still there, justifying occupation by embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient.
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It was early evening when I arrived, and my parents were locking their front gate. There were uniformed guards on the perimeter, and I saw the fence around their house had been electrified in the past year. ”We’ve just been to a farewell,” my mother laughed. ”Soon we’ll be the only ones left!” She meant the only whites left, although leaving Zimbabwe goes both ways these days: three million of us now live outside the country.
Rebels holding the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire said on Tuesday they would do their best to restart the moribund peace process with the west African country’s government in talks in South Africa on Sunday. The Pretoria talks are to take place the day before the mandate of the peacekeeping forces expires.
A powerful earthquake struck late on Monday off the west coast of Indonesia, collapsing hundreds of buildings and sending thousands of people in several countries fleeing in panic that Asia’s second tsunami was imminent. But fears of another catastrophe eased within hours, as countries closest to the quake’s epicentre said there were no reports of waves striking their coasts.
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Thousands of panicking residents in Indonesia’s Aceh fled for high ground on Monday after a powerful earthquake provoked fears of a new tsunami catastrophe. The underwater earthquake, measuring more than eight on the Richter scale, left at least two people dead, and warnings of a possible tsunami were issued.
An earthquake off Indonesia measuring more than eight on the Richter scale triggered tsunami alerts around the Indian Ocean on Monday, causing panic three months after giant waves killed hundreds of thousands in the region. A United States-run tsunami alert centre urged the evacuation of coastal zones.