A situation out of sync could be remedied this week with the formal launch of the Press Council on Friday. The new body is intended to beef up the role of the press ombudsman — a one-person operation that has dealt with public complaints about newspapers over the past 10 years.
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The crisis in Turkey has been portrayed, simplistically, as a struggle between secular democracy and Islam. But matters are far more complex. Last Sunday the Justice and Development Party, the allegedly Islamist grouping led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, captured many more votes than its opponents in a national poll, writes Suren Pillay.
Floyd Mayweather Jnr has agreed to come out of retirement to fight Ricky Hatton, the British boxer’s father, Ray, said on Wednesday. Hatton is expected to move up a division from light welterweight for the fight, which will probably be staged on December 8 in Las Vegas, where he beat Jose Luis Castillo in June to retain his IBO title.
The Presidency has rejected the notion of a multiparty team to advise the government on post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) matters. Spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said on Wednesday guidelines followed by the National Prosecuting Authority on the post-TRC legal process were approved by the Cabinet and adopted by the National Assembly.
A lever to control engine speed was in the wrong position and probably a major case of a Brazil’s worst air accident last month, according to flight-recorder data cited by a newspaper on Wednesday. An Airbus A320 operated by Brazilian carrier TAM Linhas Aereas barrelled off the wet runway upon landing at Congonhas airport in São Paulo on July 17.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader said on Wednesday a government price freeze was unsustainable and had left inflation-battered consumers worse off. Zimbabweans have struggled to buy basic commodities since President Robert Mugabe’s government ordered businesses to cut their prices to mid-June levels in a bid to rein in inflation.
A woman told the Scottburgh High Court on Wednesday she ”didn’t feel like” she was part of her own body as a man raped her on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast. The woman, who may not be identified, said: ”I didn’t feel like I was a part of my body. I wasn’t there. When something like that happens, you switch off.” The student was the second victim to testify at the trial.
Rural fires that blazed for weeks in South Africa killed at least 26 people, marking the worst loss of life from such infernos since the 1980s, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday. Ten deaths have been confirmed in Mpumalanga and 16 in KwaZulu-Natal, where veld and forest fires broke out on July 2.
The African Union, whose contingent of peacekeepers has struggled to restore stability in Darfur over the past three years, voiced relief on Wednesday at the decision by the United Nations to send troops to the war-torn western Sudanese region. The resolution authorises the deployment of a robust 26 000-strong contingent.