It’s a powerful moment in Michael Moore’s anti-war film Fahrenheit 9/11. A young American soldier who lost his arms in a helicopter explosion is describing his injuries. The soldier, Sergeant Peter Damon, says he feels like he is being ”crushed in a vice”. Painkillers, he continues, ”take a lot of the edge off of it”.
The Bush administration, heavily influence by the Christian right, is blocking key proposals for a new United Nations package to combat HIV/Aids worldwide over the next five years because of its opposition to the distribution of condoms and needle exchanges and references to prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals.
Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters ruthlessly exposed the gulf in talent in women’s tennis on Friday when both stormed effortlessly into the French Open third round. Hingis, the 12th seed and playing at Roland Garros for the first time in five years, crushed Zuzana Ondraskova of the Czech Republic, ranked a lowly 114 in the world, 6-1, 6-3 in just 49 minutes.
Thousands of angry Somali Muslims on Friday denounced the United States and a US-backed warlord alliance fighting Islamic militia in the lawless capital, Mogadishu, vowing to destroy their opponents. Chanting anti-US slogans and comparing President George Bush to a Nazi, about 5Â 000 Muslims gathered in southern Mogadishu.
Next week’s by-election in Tafelsig, Cape Town, may be close, but the Democratic Alliance will win, DA leader Tony Leon predicted on Friday. A DA win in the ward 82 by-election will double its slender majority on the city council. The by-election was called after the resignation of then Independent Democrats councillor Sheval Arendse.
A cholera outbreak has killed at least 424 people and sickened 14 000 since January in southern Sudan, and officials are concerned the disease could spread to other countries, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. The outbreak has hit seven states in southern Sudan, the Geneva-based United Nations organisation said.
European stocks rose on Friday, recovering part of recent losses as investors seized on news that the New York Stock Exchange Group was to acquire the pan-European stock market Euronext. The $10-billion (€7,8-billion) cash and stock deal, announced overnight in New York, will create the first trans-Atlantic securities market.
Do not believe those members of the party who, because it is their job to do so, deny it. The African National Congress is in crisis. But equally, do not make the mistake of thinking that the ANC has not faced crisis before, because it has — and it has survived to tell the tale.
Iran could have a nuclear bomb within 10 years said John Negroponte, the United States national intelligence director on Friday. Negroponte said Iran remains the world’s principal state sponsor of terrorism. ”They seem to be determined to develop nuclear weapons,” he said.
Malawi’s embattled President Bingu wa Mutharika dropped two ministers and appointed three senior opposition leaders in a Cabinet reshuffle announced late on Thursday. The president’s office said Mutharika had appointed a 36-member Cabinet in which he dropped Health Minister Hetherwick Ntaba and Martin Kansichi, who held the Trade and Private Sector Development portfolio.