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/ 2 December 2004
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe called for unity at a crucial ruling party congress on Thursday amid tensions within the governing Zanu-PF about the election of a new vice-president. ”The message of unity… has continued to energise us even as our external and internal enemies have been vigorously seeking their dream of regime change,” Mugabe said.
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/ 2 December 2004
The vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Azarias Ruberwa, has called on Rwanda to withdraw troops from his country , after United Nations officials reported possible movements of Rwandan troops crossing the border. Ruberwa, who led a Rwandan-backed rebel group before joining the DRC’s postwar transitional government in September, said his country had taken its case to the United Nations Security Council.
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/ 2 December 2004
A project to clear landmines along paths used by elephants in a wildlife sanctuary in Angola was launched at a conference on landmines in Nairobi on Thursday. If the mines are cleared, an estimated 120 000 elephants in Botswana, whose numbers are growing at 5% annually, would be able to move north to Angola and Zambia during migratory periods.
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/ 2 December 2004
An egalitarian vicar has left a group of civic dignitaries sitting on their, well, dignity. Pam Potts, chair of Fenland District Council in central England, requested three dozen seats to be reserved at the front of St Peter and St Paul’s Church at Chatteris, near Cambridge, for the council’s annual carol service. Vicar James Thomson refused, telling Potts: ”All are equal before God.”
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/ 2 December 2004
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Former head of the Heath Investigating Unit Judge Willem Heath said his unit would have come to a very different conclusion than the three agencies the government eventually tasked with investigating arms deal irregularities. Speaking after his testimony in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, Heath said: ”There was a deliberate attempt by government to keep us out of the investigation.”
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/ 2 December 2004
Sudan has told the local director of the British aid group Oxfam that while his expulsion has been postponed, he must leave the country to fulfill the requirements of his exit visa. This week, the government gave the directors of Oxfam and Save the Children in the UK 48 hours to leave Sudan, accusing them of issuing statements that sent ”signals of support” to rebels in Darfur.
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/ 2 December 2004
Three explosions rocked the Chenjiashan coal mine in northern China on Thursday, but rescuers searching for the bodies of 166 workers killed in a weekend blast escaped unharmed. The first blast ripped through the mine at 3.25am on Wednesday with another two following in the next four hours, highlighting the dangers facing rescue teams.
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/ 2 December 2004
Over 100 children have been killed and 600 others were injured by landmines in Russia’s breakaway republic of Chechnya over the past decade, according to the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (Unicef). ”Since 1994 through 2004, 717 children were injured by exploding mines in Chechnya, and 114 of them died,” Unicef spokesperson Anna Chernyakhovskaya was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
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/ 2 December 2004
Restructuring at the international news agency Reuters has sparked objections by journalists that quality could suffer, but management has said that talk of big job cuts is inaccurate. The British-based agency embarked on a drastic restructuring programme in February 2003, after posting the biggest loss in its history.
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/ 2 December 2004
The winds of change are sweeping through southern Africa, with the long-term leaders of both Namibia and Mozambique preparing to hand over to their successors after more than a 15 years at the helm. However, both departing heads of state are assured of living out their autumn years in style thanks to perk-packed retirement deals.