A woman testifying against two men she claims raped her as a child said she couldn’t tell anyone about the assaults because of the closed community mentality on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn. The woman, who cannot be identified, was testifying via videolink from New Zealand against two of seven men on trial in the isolated British territory, home to descendants of the 18th century Bounty mutineers. The community’s population numbers only 47.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have 12 hours to get out of South Africa, the Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) said in Pretoria on Thursday. About 150 marchers walked from the IMF building in Park Street to the World Bank building in Pretorius Street to protest againstAfrica’s debt and the institution’s pro-privatisation policies.
A second person has been gored by a black rhino in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal nature conservation authorities said on Thursday.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Jeff Gaisford said that in the latest incident Mandlenkosi Magubane (33), one of a group of contract workers clearing alien vegetation in the reserve on Monday, stumbled upon a black rhino which attacked him.
The Treatment Action Campaign — a South African ant-Aids lobby group –and its leader, Zackie Achmat, are joint nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced on Friday. ”There could not be a better recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize than somebody who has contributed to save about 20 million people,” said Dr Eric Goemaere, head of Medicins Sans Frontieres South Africa.
An exclusive analysis of the Gallup International Voice of the People survey for the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows women are more pessimistic than men about the current state of security and prosperity in the world, WEF said in a statement on Thursday. More than 43 000 citizens in over 50 countries across the globe were interviewed in the survey – representing the views of almost 1,2 billion citizens .
Austrian writer and poet Elfriede Jelinek won the 2004 Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, the Swedish Academy announced. She won the award ”for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s cliches and their subjugating power.”
British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Thursday that poverty and instability in Africa are providing a fertile breeding ground for terror and criminal organisations.
Addressing the second meeting of a commission he set up to develop ways of helping Africa, Blair called for ”international attention to be turned into international action” in a bid to address the scale of the crisis facing the continent.
About 200 anti-government activists in Harare demonstrated on Thursday against a barrage of repressive Bills that were introduced into the Zimbabwean legislature.
Mof the National Constitutional Assembly, pressing for a democratic constitution, marched through the city centre strewing thousands of leaflets condemning planned laws that threaten the existence of the vigorous civil liberties lobby.
A shortage of influenza vaccine in the northern hemisphere could negatively affect South Africa next winter, a private sector clinic said on Thursday. ”If they are having a very bad flu season in the northern hemisphere, then we are guaranteed a bad season,” said Dr Andrew Jamieson, a medical director of the South African Airways-Netcare Travel Clinics.
Ariel Sharon’s chief aide caused a political storm on Wednesday by claiming that the real purpose of the Israeli prime minister’s ”disengagement plan” was to freeze the peace process and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, all with the blessing of the United States.