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/ 24 September 2004
Who could honestly describe the 2004 contest of George W Bush and John Kerry as a domestic affair? This election will be decisive not just for the United States but for the future of the world. Anyone who doubts it need only look at the past four years. Indeed, every citizen on the planet should have a say in who gets into the White House.
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/ 24 September 2004
North American bishops will cut off funds from the Anglican Church in Africa if they are disciplined for supporting the election of a gay bishop. This warning is due to be delivered to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, by a commission made up of senior churchmen from across the world. The commission has recently completed a year-long deliberation into the church’s future.
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/ 24 September 2004
Algeria has a growing number of women forced to live on the streets, often with small children to support. In the capital, Algiers, runaways, divorcees and women kicked out of their homes by their families rummage through garbage for food and cardboard for shelter. ”The dark point in Algerian legislation is the ‘family code’,” explains a senior journalist with the independent Algerian newspaper, El Watan.
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/ 24 September 2004
Egypt is pressing ahead with ”very progressive” ideas for reform, but changing the way the president is elected is not one of them, at least for the time being, a spokesperson for the governing party said this week. President Hosni Mubarak’s fourth six-year term ends in October next year and opposition groups are pressing for a free election and a choice of candidates.
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/ 24 September 2004
A Turkish construction firm joined the growing list of companies to halt operations in Iraq last week in order to win the release of 10 of its staff held hostage by militants. Since militant groups began seizing foreigners in Iraq six months ago, they have made a significant impact on the operation of the United States-led military coalition. Many lives have been saved in Iraq by yielding to captors’ demands.
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/ 24 September 2004
Despite a broad commitment to combating the spread of HIV/Aids on the continent, African governments spend far too little of their own funds on intervention programmes, a new study has found. With the exception of South Africa, most relied, to a large extent, on donor funding. A review of national budgets showed that strategic plans to tackle the virus were ”poorly costed and budgeted”.
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/ 24 September 2004
Natalie du Toit spearheaded South Africa to its ninth Athens Paralympic gold medal with a world record 2min 29,98sec in the 200m individual medley on Thursday night, adding to the world record gold by Nicholas Newman in the javelin at the Olympic Stadium earlier in the day.
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/ 24 September 2004
Experienced opener Justin Langer said on Friday that Australia were highly motivated to win their first Test series in India in more than three decades. Bill Lawry was the last captain to lead Australia to a Test series triumph in India way back in 1969.
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/ 24 September 2004
Silver Stars have warned Ajax Cape Town to brace themselves for yet another embarrassing defeat in less than a week when they meet at Newlands Stadium on Saturday. This comes after Ajax were handed a 6-0 humiliating defeat by Orlando Pirates at Ellis Park Stadium on Wednesday.
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/ 24 September 2004
If United States President George W Bush were running for re-election on the basis of his stewardship of the US economy alone, he would already be packing his bags. To be blunt, by recent standards, the economy’s performance has been dismal. Some of that grimness has not been Bush’s fault — he took office in the backwash of a calamitous financial bubble. But little that the Bush team has done since has been effective or sensible in policy terms.