There exists, as all residents of France know, a gnomic Gallic god who occasionally decides, for reasons unclear to mere mortals, that the time has come for you to be re-acquainted with the very singular charms of French bureaucracy. This painful but doubtless improving experience can take many forms.
A new book by Gwen Ansell explores the history and politics of local jazz. It takes us back in time to when the circumstances of struggle politics influenced the composition of music, writes Sabata-Mpho Mokae.
Sudan accused ethnic minority rebels in the Darfur region on Friday of trying to sabotage peace with the south by stepping up operations ahead of the signing of a final deal with southern rebels. Security authorities have uncovered a ”subversive plot”, claimed Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, quoted by the state-run Sudan News Agency.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi announced on Friday in Nairobi the names of 47 ministers who will form his new Cabinet, nearly a month after the country’s Parliament sacked his first team. The ministers and 42 assistant ministers were immediately sworn into office before President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
AU to send peace force to Somalia
Liberals are engaged in a fight to ensure the dominance of their ideas in the debate about what constitutes political change in South Africa, but African National Congress supporters must fight an ”ideological struggle” to determine the dominant ideas for the transformation of South Africa, says President Thabo Mbeki.
DA hits out at Mbeki’s ‘mixed messages’
The Ukraine celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Friday with the end of its election saga finally in sight, after a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to be inaugurated president of the ex-Soviet nation. Hundreds of holiday revellers milled around Kiev’s central Independence Square.
United States scientists have detected the largest explosion to date in the universe, which saw a mass equivalent to about 300-million suns sucked into a black hole, Nasa said on Thursday. ”The eruption, which has lasted for more than 100-million years, has generated energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts,” Nasa said.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) and tour operator Wild Adventures Africa are asking South Africans to donate money to help animals in the countries struck by the tsunami. The NSPCA has pointed out that the rescue of farm animals is crucial to local economies.
Iranian bus and truck drivers will soon face being stopped at the side of the road and forced to pee into a bottle as part of a police campaign to weed out drug users.
An estimated 10% of these drivers use narcotics, meaning police have been forced to add thin-layer chromatography urine-testing kits to their arsenal.
A 1997 BMW car once owned by England football captain David Beckham has sold for more than £90 000 (R1,02-million) on eBay — to the dismay of the man who sold it two months ago for less than a fifth of that. Businessman John Pearson said it was "like winning a small lottery jackpot and losing the ticket".