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.
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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.
Any effort to stop Jacob Zuma from becoming president would be like ”trying to fight against the big wave of the tsunami”, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said on Monday. Speaking at a Cosatu conference in Midrand, Vavi stressed that this was his personal view.
The destruction on Monday of 10 000 firearms during a gun amnesty was good, but not good enough, said Judy Bassingthwaite, director of Gunfree South Africa. ”The 10 000 guns destroyed this morning will never harm another human being. Yes it’s a success, but it’s the beginning.
In a haze of dust, wearing ear mufflers against the clang of machines, Lobano Kalimbiro smashes red rocks rich in tin ore with a metal hammer, working up a sweat in a trade that fuelled central Africa’s biggest war and may spawn another.
A 41-year-old man with erectile dysfunction cut off his penis in a southern Philippine city, hospital staff said on Monday. Ernesto Almonte was rushed by his father to a hospital late on Sunday in Zamboanga City, 875km south of Manila, after he cut off his penis.
The risk of epidemics is rising dangerously in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as more than 70 000 refugees fled to already-crowded camps over the weekend after renewed violence in the Ituri region, United Nations officials said.
About 20% of South African children are obese or overweight, a fact the authors of a charter for physical activity want to change. ”It is hoped the document would become government policy and eventually lead to physical education being reintroduced as a compulsory subject in all schools,” said Dr Karen Sharwood, an exercise physiologist driving the initiative.