Shiite Muslim radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr has offered to withdraw his fighters from the Iraqi holy city of Najaf if United States forces pull out as part of a deal to end weeks of bitter fighting. Al-Sadr also called for the postponement of legal proceedings against him over his alleged role in the murder of a rival cleric.
Questions about pay in the new army’s first and only brigade prompt chuckles among the men. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), soldiering on a steady salary has never been part of the deal. Less humorous are the former child combatants and illiterates among the ill-trained guerrilla fighters and government soldiers.
Khartoum is continuing a campaign of ”ethnic cleansing” in the western region of Darfur, despite having signed a peace accord with rebels to end 21 years of civil war in the south, an international rights group warned on Thursday. ”In the western part of the country, the Sudan government is taking a terrible step backward,” Human Rights Watch said.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe ruled out bringing forward general elections due in March next year, saying they will be held as scheduled to ensure a level playing field, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The 80-year-old leader said it would be ”undemocratic” to call an early poll.
There is no legal duty on the South African government to take any steps to protect its citizens in distress abroad, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Argument was being led on behalf of the government, which opposes an application for state intervention by 70 South African alleged mercenaries being held in Zimbabwe.
In October 1973, when the Arab-Israeli war threatened to erupt into a Cold War confrontation, Richard Nixon was too drunk to take a call from the British Prime Minister Edward Heath, according to telephone transcripts cleared for release on Wednesday.
When George Woods gets home in the evenings, he immerses himself in his master of business administration (MBA) studies. When the Council on Higher Education (CHE) released the results of its MBA accreditation survey last week, the BSN was not accredited. But Students and institutions have decided to push on despite Council on Higher Education discrediting their MBAs.
South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang took aim on Thursday at doctors for holding protests against legislation regulating their dispensing of medicines. Doctors marched on Parliament earlier this year in protest. About 500 doctors — of about 8Â 500 involved — have completed dispensing courses and obtained licences.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66984">’Hey Manto, get off drugs'</a>
The New York Times on Wednesday admitted that its coverage in the run-up to the Iraq war was ”not as rigorous as it should have been” and failed to adequately question the credibility of Iraqi defectors or challenge their tales of terror camps and the presence of weapons of mass destruction.
Unable to glean direction from either the rand or world markets, the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was nevertheless forging ahead in noon trade on Thursday, fuelled by basket buying by futures players. Dealers said that the gains came in fairly low volumes.