Michael Moore’s satirical documentary on the Bush administration, Fahrenheit 9/11, may have broken box office records, but it was not enough to win the director an invitation to this week’s Democratic convention. ”I have not publicly endorsed Kerry,” he said. Neither had he been asked to help the campaign.
More than 220 North Koreans flew into Seoul on Tuesday after a 6 400km journey through China and Vietnam, completing the biggest single defection from the North. They are likely to be joined later this week by a similarly large contingent, bringing the number of defectors this year almost level with last year’s record 1 281.
The United States and British governments are gathering evidence to determine whether genocide is being committed in the Darfur region of Sudan, where an estimated 30 000 people have been killed and more than a million have fled their homes. The British Foreign Office said that it would not shy away from uncomfortable conclusions, even though a declaration of genocide would invoke a legal obligation to intervene.
Remember him? South Africa’s first motorsport World Champion, Kork Ballington won 31 grands prix and four world titles, taking both the 250cc and 350cc crowns for Kawasaki in 1978 and 1979. Today, Kork and his family live in Brisbane, Australia, where he and his wife Bronwyn run a retail fastener business — nuts ‘n bolts, in other words. Gavin Foster has a word with the former champ.
The "clash of civilisations" supposedly under way between the West and the Muslim world, which many see as manifested in Iraq, as well as in Saudi Arabia’s growing violence, masks other conflicts that will probably prove to be more significant. One of these struggles is taking place among Muslims themselves over the shape of reform within their own societies.
Computer-generated imaging is being used to recreate historical events in a documentary for the Discovery Channel and is being hailed as the next generation of television history programmes. But how dangerous could this technology be in the wrong hands? The technique has the potential to create an entirely new genre of documentary making.
Poverty has often played the leading role in driving Kenyans to look for employment in the Middle East. But last week’s kidnapping of three Kenyans by Iraqi militants is set to change all that, if the government has its way. The government of President Mwai Kibaki has urged Kenyans working in the Middle East to return home, but that will mean an increase in the number of people looking for jobs.
Critics have likened KWV’s sale of a quarter of its shares to an empowerment consortium to filling rugby quotas with players from other sporting codes, and claim that instead of broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE), the deal "over-empowers" a select few in the black elite. The Food and Allied Workers’ Union says the Phetogo empowerment consortium is dominated by the "Lucky 14".
Hestrie Cloete, South Africa’s golden girl of athletics, continued on her victorious way when she won the high jump at the DN Galan IAAF Super Grand Prix in Stockholm on Tuesday night with a height of 1,97 metres. Despite the wet and rainy conditions, a capacity crowd packed the famous Olympic stadium for a meeting that once again produced top-class performances.
Vido Mgadle is the newly appointed president of the Border Cricket Board. He beat Colin Wilson in a closely run and sometimes heated election for the presidency on July 18. Prior to the election there were rumours that Mgadle had canvassed various cricket clubs in the country areas in clandestine meetings to win extra votes.