And so, another year in Zimbabwe — and in less than three months’ time, another election. It is a prospect that few seem to welcome. Compare the political environment in the country now with what it was ahead of the last parliamentary poll in 2000, and the lack of voter enthusiasm is not hard to understand.
Zimbabwean authorities arrested a senior official in the National Security Ministry on Tuesday, as dramatic investigations into spying activities unfold. His arrest brings to six the number of people arrested for spying in recent weeks.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=177306">Ministers suspects in ‘spy ring'</a>
Chaotic relief efforts on Indonesia’s tsunami-raked Sumatra island hit a new stumbling block on Tuesday with a cargo plane accident, as the United Nations warned the death toll in the country could soar to more than 100Â 000. Hundreds of aid workers backed by helicopters have descended on Aceh.
A barefoot man with a pickaxe ignores the ”Prohibited” sign — entry to the disused colliery could mean injury or death. At 7am a hot berg wind is already blowing across the flyblown northern KwaZulu-Natal valley. A nastier form of self-employment — scouring abandoned mines for coal to sell — is hard to think of, yet 45 retrenched miners and their families in Verdriet, south of Dundee, depend on it.
South African health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings is forging ahead with its plans to include pharmacy dispensaries in many of its Clicks stores in the new year, as well as expanding its Hyperpharm brand, despite the current legal and regulatory uncertainties surrounding medicine pricing and pharmacy fees.
Voice communications using internet standards will be the fastest-growing technology application among South African corporations in 2005. More than half the organisations interviewed in a survey intend to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for the first time this year — on top of a third of that already use the technology.
An off-duty soldier on Monday called on fellow troops to disobey orders to tear down structures during a violent confrontation at an unauthorised West Bank settlement — a sign of trouble ahead when Israel’s government orders evacuation of entire settlements in the summer. The incident on Monday was the first of its kind, according to the military.
Britain’s civil service embarked on an 18-year quest for the perfect toilet paper after a doctor voiced concern about a diplomat’s haemorrhoids, according to a government file made public on Tuesday. John Hunt, a London physician, wrote to the Treasury’s medical adviser in 1963 after he examined Sir John Pilcher.
It’s never too late to start a new career — even if you’re 96 years old and the new job is modelling cosmetics. Irene Sinclair, a Guyana-born pensioner living in London, is appearing on billboards around Britain this month, wrinkles and all, to help sell Dove, a popular brand of facial cream.
An Australian man who was hailed a hero for allegedly saving more than a dozen lives in Thailand during the tsunami disaster has been arrested by local police on outstanding assault and burglary charges. Thomas David Connell was handcuffed and arrested after he stepped off the plane at Brisbane International airport on Monday.