United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has reported no progress by the Sudanese government to end the crisis in the western Darfur region, citing continuing clashes, attacks against civilians, escalating banditry and tribal conflict.
In a report to the UN Security Council circulated on Monday night, Annan described fresh promises by the Khartoum government but no positive action during September to end the 19-month conflict that has killed over 50Â 000 people and forced 1,4Â million to flee their homes.
”’You are so lucky! Oh I wish I was in your shoes, leaving this dreadful country and its problems. I wish I could fit in your suitcase!’ So they all said to me. My friends, my family, colleagues in the office, complete strangers at Harare airport immigration.” Everjoice Win on how being fresh out of Zimbabwe doesn’t necessarily make you a lucky fish.
Zimbabwe’s official opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has hinted strongly that it will participate in the forthcoming March national election — even though conditions at present appeared to indicate otherwise. The party argues that South Africa is losing up to half of its economic growth due to the crisis in Zimbabwe.
Bob Dylan’s much anticipated autobiography hits United States bookstores on Tuesday, offering a rare, first-hand insight into the reclusive singer’s life, the genesis of his career and struggle with celebrity. However, any fan seeking a sensational tell-all confessional in the style of most rock music memoirs will be sorely disappointed.
Insurgents unleashed a pair of powerful car bombs near the symbol of United States authority in Iraq — the Green Zone, where the US embassy and key government offices are located — and hotels occupied by hundreds of foreigners. Two other explosions brought the day’s bombing toll to at least 24 dead and more than 100 wounded. The day’s violence also included assassinations of three Iraqis, and US attacks against targets in insurgent-held Fallujah.
Rising world oil prices have given fresh impetus to an as yet fruitless 40-year search for the black gold on and near the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, officials there said on Monday. ”Since the rise in the price per barrel, several foreign oil companies have signed exploration licences in Madagascar,” said Ignace Randrianasolo, head of fossil fuels at the Office of Mines and Strategic Industries.
Janet Leigh, who has died aged 77, appeared in about four dozen films in a Hollywood career that began in 1947. But the single role that ensured her a continuing place in movie history was that of Marion Crane, who meets her fate in the gleaming white of a motel bathroom in the extraordinary shower murder sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Two United States researchers on Monday shared the 357 839 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine for their discovery of the molecular machinery behind the scent of lilac in the spring, the bouquet of a vintage burgundy or the smell of napalm in the morning.
Israeli forces have demolished the homes of hundreds of Palestinians, bulldozed swaths of agricultural land and destroyed infrastructure in their bloodiest assault on the Gaza Strip in years. More than 70 people have died in Operation Days of Penitence, launched in northern Gaza six days ago after a Hamas rocket attack killed two Israeli children.
President Thabo Mbeki has made a withering attack on commentators who argue that violent crime is out of control in South Africa, calling them white racists who want the country to fail. He said crime was falling but some journalists distorted reality by depicting black people as ”barbaric savages” who liked to rape and kill.