Opposition leaders in Haiti called a two-day general strike on Thursday in an attempt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after clashes between presidential supporters and opponents left two dead and more than 20 injured in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was flat in noon trade on Friday after a volatile morning on which the bourse lacked major drivers. Dealers said most of the morning’s moves had been stock specific, with no clear trends. At midday, the all-share index was up a marginal 0,07%.
There’s nothing like a big shiny trophy to give closet nationalists the sporting hots. The same shabby politicos who spent their days at Patrice Lumumba University struggling through the all-in-pictures version of <i>Das Kapital</i> now embrace victories as proof of their nation’s manifest destiny.
India and Pakistan agreed to talks this week to resolve their differences and expressed confidence about settling their dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which brought them to the brink of war two years ago.
The premier league title chase is developing into a battle between the Soweto heavyweights and Western Cape-based clubs. The northerners have had the upper hand in the past, winning five league titles (Sundowns three, Orlando Pirates two) while the Cape has won only once (Santos).
The Castle Premier Soccer League has decided to celebrate the new year with a fixture paying tribute to the old. Orlando Pirates take on rivals Moroka Swallows at the Johannesburg stadium in the country’s oldest and most continuously played fixture. It has been more than 55 years since these two sides first met.
Arsenal versus Middlesbrough. You’ll learn to love those words. The teams meet four times over the next 18 days. On Saturday at Highbury, it’s a mere Premiership clash. The unbeaten Gunners, held 1-1 at Everton on Wednesday, come against one of the meanest defences in the division.
Scripted endings to careers are rare in sport. Too often great players hobble into retirement on the arm of a physiotherapist, or choose euthanasia, a quick pre-emptive press-conference to avoid the indignity of being dropped. But Stephen Roger Waugh has always written his own script.
Following his return from international travel to brief governments and investors on the current state of the peace process in his country, Antoine Ghonda Mangalibi, Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), spoke with Irin recently on his country’s view of the Great Lakes regional peace conference, and more.
Two airline crashes in Africa this past fortnight have added to the continent’s dismal air safety record. On December 25 113 people were killed when a Beirut-bound Boeing 727 clipped a building on the end of the runway at Cotonou, the commercial capital of Benin and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean.