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/ 26 November 2004
President Thabo Mbeki will hit the ground in Côte d’Ivoire this week with the deadlock hardening between the government and the rebels, and President Laurent Gbagbo’s relationship with France steadily unravelling. The world’s former cocoa capital is currently in the throes of a violent domestic row, the likes of which has not been seen in post-colonial Africa. Trying to save the peace deal here may just be the most difficult thing Mbeki has ever done.
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/ 26 November 2004
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) is set to be paying for its showpiece Millennium Stadium for at least another 35 years under the terms of a debt re-financing package announced on Thursday. The WRU is 55-million pounds (-million) in debt, the entire deficit resulting from cost over-runs in the construction of and a lack of income from the 73 000-capacity stadium.
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/ 26 November 2004
The selection of only one fast bowler by India ahead of this week’s first Test in Kanpur was a neon-lit hint of what was to come. Not that hints were needed, of course. Green Park is one of those Test venues on the frontier of respectability, where corporatised cricket still rubs shoulders with old-school skullduggery.
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/ 26 November 2004
England cricket boss David Morgan repeated on Friday, the day the England team were due to fly to Zimbabwe, that financial concerns had to have priority over moral questions about Robert Mugabe’s regime. In the huge market that is world sport, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Morgan said money was a prime factor in their thinking.
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/ 26 November 2004
South African players are comfortable tackling India’s rampaging spin bowlers on low bouncing pitches after dominating the drawn Test series opener this week, but the thought of playing in front of the world’s noisiest cricket crowd is worrying them.
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/ 25 November 2004
An Irish Catholic priest was found murdered on Thursday at his parish in Ngong, southwest of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, police and church sources said. ”Last night around midnight, a group of 10 to 20 gangsters armed with crude weapons invaded the residence of Father John Francis Hannon at Upper Matasia in Ngong and murdered him,” a police statement said.
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/ 25 November 2004
A mysterious carved code at a British manor house, which has defied understanding for hundreds of years, is thought to be a cryptic message from an 18th century Christian sect, the Priory of Sion, experts said on Thursday. The marble tablet, commissioned in 1748, features a carved image with the letters ”DOUOSVAVVM” underneath.
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/ 25 November 2004
Fewer than 10 people have died and 50 injured in pre-election violence in Mozambique, according to an election official who said on Thursday that the toll showed a ”more peaceful” climate than in previous elections. Voters in Mozambique will go to the polls on December 1 and 2 to choose a successor to President Joaquim Chissano, who is stepping down after 18 years in power.
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/ 25 November 2004
On Thursday the 16 Days of Action Against Violence campaign was launched — a. campaign aimed at raising awareness about violence against women and children. This year it is campaigning in cyberspace by holding daily online chat sessions that can joined nationwide.