Iraq’s prime minister, Ayad Allawi, on Thursday night issued a ”final call” for the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to disarm his fighters and leave Najaf’s mosque — or face the prospect of a devastating final assault. Using blunt language, Allawi said the radical Shia cleric had to accept the government’s demands personally and in writing to end the fighting in Najaf.
Najaf could face ‘bloodbath’ in hours
Dust storms emanating from the Sahara have increased tenfold in 50 years, contributing to climate change as well as threatening human health and destroying coral reefs thousands of kilometres away. And one major cause is the replacement of the camel by four-wheel drive vehicles as the desert vehicle of choice.
At first glance the text of the advert running in national newspapers on Friday reads like an attack on the burger and fries giant McDonald’s. The advert says it supports the core argument of a film where a man who eats burgers for 30 days piles on weight to such a health damaging extent that his doctors order him to stop eating them.
Researchers claim to have solved the mystery of the people who simply do not count. It could be because they are lost for words. The Piraha of the Amazon have almost legendary status in language research. They have no words at all for number. They use only only three words to count: one, two, many.
If there were a competition for the world’s worst traffic jam, several thousand drivers on China’s route 307 would have been able to offer themselves up as contenders this week after a 10-day, 96km snarl-up left them stranded in driving rain and searing heat.
Zimbabwe’s trust in President Robert Mugabe has risen to 46%, a survey released on Thursday shows, but it gives most of the credit for the aging leader’s increased popularity to state propaganda and the fear of intimidation. The Afrobarometer survey shows that trust in Mugabe has more than doubled from the 20% it recorded when it was last conducted, in 1999.
This year’s 3 Continents Film Festival features an exciting line-up that includes <i>Original Child Bomb</i> — a poetic and contemplative film about the nuclear bomb and its cost to humanity — and the controversial documentary <i>Zimbabwe Countdown</i>.
The first thing I notice when I arrive at Graskop in Mpumalanga is the serenity that embraces this small town. Contentment is lodged in the atmosphere. Even first-time visitors realise that there is something about this town. The weather, the people and the vibe add to the mystery. Here is a story begging to be told.
As Athenians sweated to finish the Olympic stadiums, an Orthodox priest on the island of Paros, about three hours away, was intoning over a modest dwelling that may yet crown Greece’s cultural Olympiad. He was inaugurating the country’s first House of Literature.
After months of breathless anticipation, the Athens Olympics got under way last Friday, presenting a worldwide television audience of billions with an opening ceremony that, in the tradition of Greek drama, had us howling in a mixture of belly-laughter and gut-wrenching pity.