No image available
/ 28 February 2005
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, which won four Oscars on Sunday, including the award for best picture, tells the story of the tragic, platonic relationship between a young woman determined to become a boxer and a grizzled trainer 30 years her senior.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
Mystery on Sunday night surrounded a network of offshore bank accounts in the Isle of Man and Jersey that appear to be connected with Bernard Swanepoel, the chief executive of Harmony Gold, which is at the centre of a massive mining merger in South Africa.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
Pope John Paul II made an unexpected appearance on Sunday at his hospital window, making the sign of the cross to show that he was still with the Catholic world although his recent operation means he cannot speak. The 84-year-old pontiff was in a wheelchair and wearing his white papal robes and skullcap when he appeared for less than two minutes.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
The Syrian government, under intense pressure from the United States and others in the international community, made its first significant concession on Sunday by handing over to the interim Iraqi government Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and former head of the Iraqi secret police, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
"The 20th century was the bloodiest in history. It will be remembered for the millions of innocent children, women and men who needlessly perished in war." Richard Goldstone urges African members of the ICC not to allow the United States to delay justice to the victims in Darfur.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
In the play <i>Julius Caesar</i>, the character Mark Antony says in his funeral oration: "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar." It is impossible to travel through Africa without wondering about what evils have been interred with the bones of its many defunct despots — and what good they might possibly have left behind.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
As a call to arms, few national hymns are as bloody as La Marseillaise. Originally entitled the War Song of the Army of the Rhine, it exhorts citizens of France to take up arms: ”Form in batallions, March, march! Let impure blood water our furrows!” Now, after a 10-year battle, French schoolchildren are to be made to learn the words after a vote by French MPs.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
In the wooden shanty town of Elmina on the outskirts of Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, Aids educators do not let religious or cultural conservatism get in their way. A wooden dummy of a penis fitted with a condom is used to instruct people about the dangers of unprotected sex — a somewhat unexpected sight in a country that is almost entirely Muslim, and where discussions about sex have tended to be taboo.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
Will they or won’t they? This question is on the lips of political observers in Malawi at present, as they wait to see whether substantial numbers of ruling coalition or opposition members will support the country’s newest political grouping: the Democratic Progressive Party. At stake is the future of party founder President Bingu wa Mutharika, who resigned from the United Democratic Front earlier this month.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has blasted ruling party officials for selling secrets to foreign governments in his first reaction on an alleged espionage ring involving senior Zanu-PF members and a South African spy. The octogenarian leader said that anybody involved in spying would not be let off the hook.