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/ 29 November 2004
Deepika Thani drew her first breath as the world’s worst chemical accident flushed the air out of the lungs of thousands of people in Bhopal 20 years ago this week. Just before midnight on December 2 1984, milky white clouds of toxic gas settled over the sleeping citizens of Bhopal. A lethal fog of poisonous gas was spewing from a pesticide plant owned by the American multinational Union Carbide.
100 000 still suffer ‘chronic illnesses’
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/ 29 November 2004
Journalist Tony Weaver has been suspended from his post as acting news editor of the Cape Times after criticising ”plagiarism” by sister newspaper the Cape Argus. Weaver did this in the Krisjan Lemmer column of the Mail & Guardian. ”I have no regrets,” he told Mail & Guardian Online.
Krisjan Lemmer: Behind the scenes
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/ 29 November 2004
The auditor who confronted Thomson-CSF boss Alain Thetard about his role in allegedly procuring a bribe for Deputy-President Jacob Zuma testified in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial on Monday. Gary Parker, the audit partner for Thomson-CSF in South Africa, said he and his audit manager David Green met Thetard after allegations of bribery by a former secretary, Susan Delique.
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/ 29 November 2004
Objectors to the building of a mini-nuclear reactor outside Cape Town did not get a fair chance to put forward their views, a full bench of the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Environmental lobby group Earthlife Africa is asking the court to overturn Environment Affairs Director-General Chippy Olver’s approval in June last year of an environmental impact assessment for the reactor.
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/ 29 November 2004
Up to 100 million people could die within weeks if a bird flu pandemic broke out, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official warned on Monday as he urged nations to make urgent preparations to mitigate its spread. A global outbreak is almost certain and even widescale vaccination programmes would not be enough to halt its advance, the WHO director for the Western Pacific, Shigeru Omi, said.
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/ 29 November 2004
The African National Congress took a conciliatory stance on Monday in its spat with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, saying the archbishop remained highly respected as a South African leader. Earlier on Monday, Tutu used irony to rebuke President Thabo Mbeki for his scathing attack last week on the archbishop, in a newsletter on the African National Congress website ANC Today.
Tutu reads SA the riot act
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/ 29 November 2004
Sudan on Monday ordered the expulsion of the directors of two British-based humanitarian organisations for their statements on the Darfur crisis. The Humanitarian Affairs Commission said the program directors of Save the Children UK and Oxfam International had violated the laws on non-intervention in the country’s political, ethnic or sectarian issues.
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/ 29 November 2004
Up to 70 KwaZulu-Natal teachers faced arrest on Monday as part of an education department and police clampdown on fraud and theft. Officials believed a syndicate operating within the department devised a scam whereby bogus qualification bonuses were fraudulently paid into some teachers’ bank accounts.
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/ 29 November 2004
Rocky the sniffer dog and handler Daniel Richardson were back on their Australian beat Monday after a Sydney appeals court ruled that nosing up to a man in a nightclub queue didn’t amount to an assault or even an unlawful search. Glen Darby, 23-year-old estate agent , instigated the appeal court process after police allege that Rocky alerted Richardson to a pocketful of amphetamines and cannabis.
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/ 29 November 2004
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Swazi Queen Sibonelo Mngomezulu tackles her kingdom’s record-high HIV/Aids rates with as much passion as she fights to bring women out of men’s shadows in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Married to polygamist King Mswati III for nearly 20 years, she has broken the mould many times, completing a law degree, speaking out against polygamy, producing her own television show and setting up the first HIV/Aids charities.