And so, with nothing particular in our minds except to travel away from the city for a few hours, we found ourselves on a dirt road on the edge of the Magaliesberg, the City of Gold dimly visible through the autumn haze behind our backs. We were looking for something — a quiet spot to retreat to, perhaps, in days to come. A fantasy of life far from the madding crowd. Yeah, right.
The South African economy is enjoying a boom of almost unprecedented proportions. Household spending is leading the way and firms are playing catch-up. The public sector is adding to what is now a highly inadequate structure of roads, ports and railways. But a local economist says South Africa must give business freedom from regulation, and perhaps weaken the rand.
The United Nations last week condemned advertising campaigns by Dr Matthias Rath which portray anti-retroviral therapy as toxic and promote vitamin therapy as an alternative. In a statement released last week, the World Health Organisaton, the UN Children’s Fund and the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids lashed out at Rath’s advertisements, saying they were "wrong and misleading".
Nigeria’s former chief of police Tafa Balogun arrived in handcuffs on Monday to face multi-million-dollar corruption charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja. Balogun was detained for questioning on Monday last week, two months after he was forced to resign by President Olusegun Obasanjo amid fraud allegations.
South African President and peace-broker Thabo Mbeki resumed a second day of make-or-break talks on Monday with Côte d’Ivoire leaders to try to end a civil conflict that has split the country since 2002, his spokesperson said. The talks resumed at 10am and are set to continue through the day.
More than a kilometre below the choppy Gulf of Mexico waters lies a vast, untapped source of energy. Locked in mysterious crystals, the sediment beneath the seabed holds enough natural gas to fuel the United States’s energy-guzzling society for decades, or to bring about sufficient climate change to melt the planet’s glaciers and cause catastrophic flooding, depending on whom you talk to.
France has recommended that the United Nations extend the mandate of international peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire, by one month, until it becomes clear whether a peace summit in Pretoria on Sunday achieves a breakthrough in slow-moving negotiations to end the West African country’s civil war. The current mandate expires on April 4, hours after the Pretoria summit is scheduled to take place.
Michael Tsai points to a large map on the wall of his office in Taiwan’s national defence ministry. It is dotted with red symbols representing dozens of Chinese missile, air and naval bases within easy shooting range of the capital and other major Taiwanese cities. Whatever Beijing may say about its peaceful intentions, Tsai suggests, this map illustrates the reality of the military threat that lurks 160km to the west.
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Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir vowed on Saturday not to hand over any of his countrymen to a foreign court, after the United Nations cleared the way for Darfur war crimes suspects to be tried by the International Criminal Court. About 300 000 people have died in more than two years of conflict in Darfur.