Behold, Thabob Mugabeki once again came to that place where he strapped his personal Boeing 737-800 to his bottom and was hurled into welcoming global skies. Soon after the Boeing reached low Earth orbit, Thabob Mugabeki strolled carefully back to his satin-lined boudoir, just aft of the right wing.
Before the massive earthquake that laid waste to a swathe of South Asia on October 8 last year, Assia Begum had four children. A few terrifying minutes afterwards, she had nine. Assia instantly took charge of five children born to her husband’s second wife, Shenaz, who lay crushed to death in the ruins of their shared house.
Iraq’s embattled Prime Minister, Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, speaks to Jonathan Steele in Baghdad in the leader’s first interview since United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s recent move to break the Iraqi political deadlock.
Lodge owners in a prime coastal resort are pitting the Danish and Mozambican governments against each other in a bitter legal row over who owns a piece of paradise. Jørgen Nielsen, a Danish businessman, ran into trouble in paradise shortly after he bought rights to a piece of land in the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary in 2001.
Court proceedings are brought to a halt in Harare’s High Court D where two witnesses, flown in from Switzerland, are to testify in a murder case. The recording equipment has malfunctioned and the Justice Ministry is too broke to replace it. The Swiss ambassador to Zimbabwe, leaves the court and returns moments later with a cable — for which he paid R15 — so that the case can proceed.
Iran has been conducting a sort of grand military parade up and down the Gulf this week, displaying its defensive hardware, test-firing sophisticated-sounding new weapons systems, and proclaiming its readiness to repel all would-be aggressors. The commander of the ”Great Prophet” exercises declared that Iran is now able to ”confront any extra-regional invasion”.
”The new millennium must continue to communicate the unequivocal message that — Africa shall be free!” The Mail & Guardian publishes an edited version of the inaugural lecture of the Parliamentary Millennium Project, delivered by President Thabo Mbeki, on the struggle between the Afro-optimists and the Afro-pessimists.
Do policymakers in Washington and Europe ever feel ashamed of their scandalous double standards? Before and since the Palestinian elections in January, they have continually insisted that Hamas comply with certain demands. They want us to recognise Israel, call off our resistance, and commit ourselves to whatever deals Israel and the Palestinian leadership reached in the past.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille believes she can’t afford to be a shrinking violet. She has sought to stamp her authority on a precariously balanced council in which a Democratic Alliance forum with six small parties holds sway, but she will have to fast-track her plans for the city as the African National Congress hopes to oust her during next year’s floor-crossing.
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