Prospects for an early withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon faded on Monday as the countries’ presidents agreed only a partial time-table which appeared to fall well short of international demands. A pullback to the eastern part of Lebanon will be completed by the end of this month but no date has been set for all the 14Â 000 Syrian troops to leave.
For years, they have been regarded as the world’s number one nation of fun-loving, pint-downing, party animals. But it seems they were pulling the wool over our eyes: Aussies spend more time asleep than anyone else on the planet. According to a survey of global sleeping habits, nearly a quarter of all Australians hit the sack before 10pm.
Biowatch South Africa won a major victory recently on access to information about genetically modified crops in South Africa. Pretoria High Court Acting Judge Eric Dunn granted Biowatch access to all its key requests for information — but in a surprising twist, he also ordered the environmental NGO to pay the legal costs of giant biotech multinational Monsanto.
South African Transport Workers’ Union spokesperson Abner Ramakgolo announced on Tuesday that following an agreement reached with employers, truck drivers have ended their strike and will resume work on Wednesday. The strike action that started on February 26 saw more than 30 000 truck drivers striking as a result of a snag in wage negotiations.
The sons of famous men often struggle to make their mark. And Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, is struggling more than most as he contemplates the loss of Lebanon and his country’s increasing international isolation. While his father dominated Lebanon after first intervening in 1976 with United States connivance, Syria’s 14 000 troops and security forces now face a humiliating retreat under popular fire.
Hind el-Hinnawy shocked conservative Muslim Egypt when she publicly declared herself a single mum and launched a paternity suit. The man in the case, Ahmed el-Fishawy, hosted a television talk show offering advice to devout Muslim youth. They had met on the set of a comedy called When Daddy Returned. President Hosni Mubarak may have started a process of change he cannot stop.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is not gloating. He could — but he prefers to appear magnanimous in what he hopes is victory. In an interview last week, he was handed a perfect opportunity to crow. He was talking about what he called ”the ripple of change” now spreading through the Middle East, the slow, but noticeable movement towards democracy in a region where that commodity has long been in short supply.
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While it is unlikely that any of the judges in the Constitutional Court will be wearing ”Black Labour — White Guilt” T-shirts under their robes on Tuesday, the offending shirt will probably not be far from their minds, as they consider whether it really is a cut-and-dried case of trademark infringement.
Australia and East Timor were resuming talks on Monday on how to carve up billions of dollars worth of oil and gas under the seabed that divides one of the Asia-Pacific’s richest nations from one of the region’s poorest. Three days of talks were getting under way in the Australian capital, Canberra, five months after the acrimonious collapse of the last round of negotiations.