A 45-day ceasefire agreement between the warring parties in Sudan’s western Darfur region is in question as the parties to the conflict have begun blaming each other for violating the truce they signed on Thursday. Reports from Darfur on Tuesday said three people were wounded when a passenger bus was fired on by an armed group.
The President of the island-nation Seychelles, Albert Rene, stepped down on Wednesday, 27 years after seizing power in a coup. His successor, Vice-President James Michel, was to be sworn in later in the day, local media reported. Michel is the longest-serving minister in the government.
A high-profile Kenyan opposition lawmaker was on Wednesday charged in court with corruption in connection with a land transfer deal that cost a state firm 272-million shillings (about ,5-million), police said. William Ruto was charged together with a former commissioner of lands, Samuel Mwaita.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The elation that marked the 1994 elections was mostly absent on Johannesburg’s West Rand on Wednesday, 10 years later. Voting got off to a punctual start and queues, although long, did not resemble the kilometres of people waiting to cast their ballots in the first election. Several people in the queues commented on the elections.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
An unsteady truce was extended in the flashpoint town of Fallujah on Wednesday despite sporadic clashes and casualties on both sides, as Washington sought Iran’s help to ease the violence in Iraq. United States President George Bush said he has authorised troops to use "decisive force" to maintain order in Iraq.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34146">Media bunker down in Iraq</a>
The rand shrugged off South Africa’s third democratic election on Wednesday and was flow-driven in a choppy, illiquid market. A trader said that while the market was obviously watching the elections, these were proceeding smoothly and there had been no news out to move the rand either way.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Although long queues were reported across the country on Wednesday morning, South Africa’s third general elections got off to a smooth start, with no major logistical problems reported, says Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam.
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Long queues could be seen snaking around voting stations across the country on Wednesday as South Africans went to the polls in the country’s third democratic election. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu cast his ballot in Milnerton near Cape Town and said: ”Most countries degenerate into dictatorships after their first elections. We are disproving that. We are taking it in our stride”.
There “would be no global Aids pandemic were it not for multiple sexual partnerships”, according to an article published recently.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Tensions between the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance flared on Wednesday morning, with accusations that the official opposition workers had placed DA stamps and stickers in a number of identity books.