Most Asian and Pacific governments are investing large amounts of money to ensure their citizens and companies have an affordable chance at broadband, or high-speed internet, International Data Corporation (IDC) said in a report on Monday. Revenues from broadband access are forecast to reach -billion in 2008 for the region excluding Japan, IDC said, with a 16% annual growth rate between now and then.
Cash-strapped Zimbabwe has bought 12 fighter jets and 100 military vehicles from China, the opposition shadow defence minister Giles Mutsekwa said on Sunday. The cost of the equipment has not been disclosed but Mutsekwa estimated the deal at around -million.
Zimbabwe’s inflation at 448%
A New Zealand couple had an unexpected visitor from space at the weekend when a 1,3kg meteorite crashed into their living room shortly before breakfast. The meteorite came through the roof of Phil and Brenda Archer’s house in the Auckland suburb of Ellerslie at 9.30am on Saturday morning.
Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki was on Sunday to declare a national disaster following the death in recent weeks of more than 80 people from contaminated maize. The continued threat from the rotten maize was highlighted over the weekend when 28 bags of the foodstuff were impounded at a girls’ school in eastern Kenya.
More than two billion people could be at risk of flood devastation by 2050, according to new research. One billion people are already at risk from the kind of floods that might occur every 100 years. But with global warming, that number could double in two generations, according to United Nations University researchers.
Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the United States and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday night. Nada Doumani, a spokesperson for the ICRC, said: ”The United States defines Saddam Hussein as a prisoner of war. At the end of an occupation PoWs have to be released provided they have no penal charges against them.”
The Wizard of the North, who we are flying to see in our flimsy flying flivver, has said that God moves like a crab. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. It is an old Tswana proverb, perhaps. But the wizard is a master of several languages, and anything he says can be said to have several meanings. That is what wizards are for. Even if they don’t know it themselves. That, after all, is why they are wizards.
"As somebody who believes in the importance of social movements and the radical intellectuals who support them, I must admit to be tiring quite quickly of their habit of magnifying their import, impact and size — on the basis of predictable arguments and sketchy research". In trying to make South Africa a node on the map of anti-globalisation resistance, the social movements may be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, writes Ferial Haffajee.
The recent announcement by the New National Party that it has adopted the Freedom Charter and intends to work closely with the African National Congress is significant to South African politics, and not a historic event, like many people erroneously assert. A historic event is something much more profound.
Kenyan civil society activist Edward Oyugi says Africa’s relations with the developed world amount to the continent holding out a begging bowl. But, African leaders insist they have a partnership with wealthy nations — one based on investment in return for good governance. The claim came under discussion again last week during a meeting of the Group of Eight (G8).