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.
The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) is considering going on strike if its talks with the government on the rand’s overvaluation fail. In a statement calling on the government to declare a state of emergency regarding the country’s job losses, Cosatu says it is pursuing permission to strike against clothing retailers.
The Treatment Action Campaign’s chairperson, Zackie Achmat, was recovering well after suffering a heart attack just before the start of the Easter weekend. Achmat suffered the heart attack last Thursday and will be taking a month’s rest, after working hard ”without a break under high stress”.
Oxford, the heaviest crew in Boat Race history, won the 151st edition of the event on the River Thames on Sunday. The crews were neck-and-neck for the first mile or so before the Dark Blues pulled away for a convincing win over Cambridge. It was the third win in four years for Oxford.