Talks between the Nigerian government and trade unions broke down on Wednesday, leaving the country on the brink of a fuel-price strike which could force up already soaring world oil prices. The Nigeria Labour Congress has warned that its members will stage a general strike from Monday in protest at recent petrol price increases.
The blogging community, some call it the ”blogosphere”, is at the heart of the latest US news scandal involving 60 Minutes, a CBS News show well respected for its journalism and Dan Rather, the 60 Minutes anchor. The growing argument between traditional media (radio, TV and print) and the ”We Media” (bloggers and wiki users) has never before been so clearly laid out for the public to see, but it worries me that most are missing the point.
A man accused of killing a woman and cooking her body parts has died from possible gastroenteritis although a case of murder has been opened, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Wednesday. Superintendent Jay Naicker said Elvis Matenjwa died in the Ngwelezan hospital on September 27. He was apparently admitted on September 22 suffering from gastroenteritis.
The South African Cabinet has urged members of the media to respect the dignity of the office of Deputy President Jacob Zuma ”and not (to) impugn his integrity on the basis of allegations not proven in a court of law”. Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe noted the Cabinet as saying: ”With regard to matters relating to the deputy president in particular, government has noted his public response to the allegations, and takes him at his word.”
When former Liberian president Charles Taylor armed Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front and supported their rebel war, he had powerful regional connections, a star prosecution witness told a United Nations-backed war-crimes tribunal. In two days of testimony, Brigadier John Tarnue told the court of meetings that laid the groundwork for Taylor’s engagement in the war.
The remains of 243 people have been exhumed from a mass grave in northwestern Bosnia, believed to have been inmates of a notorious Serb detention camp during the 1992-95 war, an official said on Wednesday. ”So far we have exhumed 243 bodies, more than half of which were complete,” Commission for Missing People member Jasmin Odobasic said.
Six-hundred-and forty-four Liberian children separated from their parents since the Liberian civil war ended in August 2003 have been reunited with their families, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday. It said 229 children were repatriated from Guinea, 199 from Sierra Leone, 12 from Ivory Coast and 199 were traced in Liberia itself.
Regime change does not work in Africa and Britain is responsible for some of the continent’s troubles, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Wednesday. Speaking during his state visit to Zimbabwe, Museveni, whose controversial ”no-party democracy” has scored some success, said he supported the seizure of white-owned farms in that country.
Scientists working in top-security labs say they have recreated pathogens from the 1918 flu pandemic, the greatest plague of the 20th century, in a bid to find out why this strain was so extraordinarily lethal. The United States team took two key genes from the 1918 virus and slotted them into human flu viruses to which lab mice were known to be immune.
The man who shot former Beatle John Lennon nearly 24 years ago has again failed to convince a New York parole board that he was ready for early release from prison. Mark Chapman (49) was returned to Attica State Prison after the three-man panel on Tuesday ruled an early release would undermine respect for law and order.