Leaders at an international conference on aid to Asian tsunami victims welcomed the idea on Thursday of debt moratorium for countries hit by the disaster, but made no commitment to do so. Delegates appeared divided over the idea of postponing debt repayments.
Zimbabwe’s outspoken Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo, has appealed against a Zanu-PF decision to exclude him from primary elections in his home district of Tsholotsho. Moyo was told that the position will be reserved for a woman, in a move he describes as ”unfair to me and to women”.
Former president Nelson Mandela’s only surviving son, Makgatho Mandela (54), has died of Aids. Makgatho had been in a critical condition in the Linksfield hospital in Johannesburg since late November, and Mandela had been spending time at his son’s bedside. ”It is a very sad day for the Mandela family,” said the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Musa Zondi.
Sudan officially ends its two-decade southern civil war next week with the signing of a peace deal. Amid the jubilation is hope that ending one war may spark a solution to the country’s second — in western Darfur, where a separate but equally brutal conflict has led to a massive humanitarian crisis.
In a letter of apology on Thursday to the Western Province Cricket Association, an English fan arrested for scribbling racist graffiti at the Newlands cricket ground said he regrets his actions and promised never to do it again. The racist graffiti cost Newlands cricket authorities more than R15Â 000 to remove.
A Supreme Court judge in Oklahoma is suing colleagues on the bench for passing him over for the state’s top judicial job because he is too old. Marian Opala (83) will take fellow judges to court for age discrimination after a rule change denied him his turn to be the state’s Supreme Court chief justice.
The first political battle since United States President George Bush’s re-election begins on Thursday at a Senate hearing to confirm as attorney general the president’s nomination of a lawyer caught up in the scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Alberto Gonzales is currently Bush’s chief legal adviser.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Jewish settlers on Wednesday that he will use all the government’s power against any of them who violently resist his planned withdrawal from Gaza and a token part of the West Bank this year. His comment reflected an angry confrontation on Monday between settlers and the Israeli army.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has insisted that the general election will go ahead as planned in three weeks’ time, despite growing calls for a delay. He said only an election will lessen the violence. Three suicide bombers struck in separate towns on Wednesday, killing more than 20 people. In Mosul, an official of the mainstream Sunni party was killed.
Indonesia now has enough food and clothes to meet the needs of tsunami survivors but donations of money and medicines are still vital, its embassy in London said on Wednesday. Deluged with offers of help, the affected countries face a battle to get the right kind of aid to the right places.