They came mostly in couples, holding roses, banners, rainbow flags and each others’ hands to join a throng of about 10 000 people. And as the clock inched towards midnight, on the steps of the city hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gay couples counted down the seconds to the moment when their unions would be legally validated.
The New National Party’s federal council is to meet in three weeks — on Saturday June 5 — to assess the party’s future after its poor showing in the national and provincial elections. A newspaper report on Tuesday said the Free State region of the party will motivate that the party should disband.
The United States government appeared to have performed a u-turn on Monday by opening the way for American approval and purchase of cheap ”pirated” copies of Aids drugs to save the lives of the poor in the regions of the world hardest hit by the pandemic.
South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys was on Monday night awarded a prestigious Obie at the 49th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards held in New York. This coveted Off-Broadway accolade was presented to Uys for his one-man show Foreign Aids that he performed at the legendary La Mama Theatre last year.
The South African PC market experienced a 56,5% year-on-year growth in units while it increased by 56,6% in value, BMI-TechKnowledge said on Tuesday in its latest PC quarterly update research report. In the first quarter in 2004, sales of desktops increased by 51,9% compared with the first quarter of 2003.
A former economy minister hand-picked by President Bakili Muluzi is tipped to win the presidential election on Thursday in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries. Muluzi is touting Bingu wa Mutharika as an ”economic engineer” and has been energetically campaigning on his behalf, at times even hogging the limelight from his political protege.
Leaders of a commercial farmers’ organisation in Namibia were meeting on Tuesday to discuss a response after the government last week handed out its first expropriation notices to white farmers. The letters urged farmers to ”make an offer to sell their property to the state and to enter into further negotiations in that regard”. The farmers were given 14 days to respond.
The likelihood of sharpshooters achieving clean and humane kills of Table Mountain tahr is more a matter of luck than good judgement, according to an affidavit by a firearms expert. ”It can be expected that a great many will be injured or wounded, although they may later die from blood loss from wounds or from infections,” said Cape Town security consultant Francois van der Merwe.
Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi has refused to become India’s next prime minister, it was reported on Tuesday. She has apparently told senior Congress Party leaders that she does not want to head the new government, television network NDTV reported.
Hindu party to boycott Gandhi ceremony
Internationally renowned ichthyologist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer died on Monday, aged 97. Courtenay-Latimer achieved international recognition as the discoverer of the coelacanth in 1938 when it was thought to have been extinct for 70-million years. The fish genus was named Latimeria chulumnae in her honour.