A battle for what is being called ”the high moral wave” was on Sunday night being fought off the wild coast of Antarctica as the world’s two leading international marine protection groups fought each other over which would stop the Japanese whaling fleet.
A South African woman was kidnapped and raped several times during the course of a day after her drink was apparently spiked at a nightclub in Mumbai, media reports said on Monday. The woman apparently ordered a drink and asked the barman to keep an eye on it while she went to the toilet.
A dozen men and women crowd the entrance to an unmarked upstairs clinic in one of Lagos’s main hospitals while others sit patiently outside a special pharmacy. A sign nearby directs patients in the opposite direction, to the ”fee-paying government hospital pharmacy” — but this discreet dispensary, run by Médecins Sans Frontières, is free.
With a population of just 70, the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda seemed to embody the imagination and creativity of a South Africa reborn after apartheid. But now another South Africa, one of poverty and inequality, has crashed into it, exposing segregation, racial tension and government neglect.
For four years, they survived some of the harshest conditions of World War II to get crucial supplies through to their besieged Russian allies, facing ceaseless bombardment, repeated U-boat attacks and some of the bitterest temperatures on Earth.
South Africa, an economic and political leader in Africa, is also the continent’s number one jailer. If prisons are a reflection of society, what conclusions are to be drawn from this reality, particularly in a nation rightfully proud of its nascent democracy? In global terms, South Africa is not alone in registering a sharp increase in its prison population.
Two plane crashes which killed more than 200 people, including schoolchildren, and a clampdown on opposition figures were the striking events that blighted Nigeria’s social and political landscape in 2005. ”2005 is a year that is ending on a catastrophic note and I do not expect any radical change from our leaders in 2006 because they are bereft of good leadership,” said reverend Gabriel Osu, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos.
Reigning Olympic champion Tristan Gale and other members of the United States women’s skeleton team have accused US coach Tim Nardiello of sexual harassment, The New York Times reported on Saturday. Nardiello denied the claims but the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation has decided that Nardiello will remain as coach through the Torino Winter Olympics in February.
Ricky Ponting starts the new year and his 100th test match on Monday hoping to pick up where he left off in 2005, with another Test century and a win over South Africa. Ponting scored 117 — his 26th test hundred — in the first innings of Australia’s 184-run win over South Africa in the Boxing Day test at Melbourne, finishing 2005 atop the run-scoring standings.
Lisa Raymond and Taylor Dent of the United States beat Serbia and Montenegro’s Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic 7-6 (3), 6-2 in their deciding mixed doubles match on Sunday at the Hopman Cup. At the mixed teams tennis tournament at the Burswood Dome, Ivanovic beat Raymond in women’s singles 6-2, 6-4 and Dent evened the match for the Americans with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Djokovic.