The soaring guitar solos and haunting keyboard melodies owe more than a nod to Pink Floyd, Yes, Deep Purple and other ageing icons of 70s British rock. But while they may have emulated their heroes’ musical virtuosity, the members of Norik Misakian Band are unlikely to follow their path to world fame and fortune.
Iraq’s ruling coalition submitted a new Constitution to Parliament on Monday night but delayed a vote for three days to try to win over Sunni Arabs who said it could lead to civil war. Shia and Kurdish leaders said they had reached a compromise between themselves and delivered a thinly veiled ultimatum to the Sunni minority to sign up to the deal by Thursday or retreat deeper into the political wilderness.
The conditions in Nurma Sulaiman’s tiny room in one of Nusa’s six barracks have just become a little more cramped. But neither she nor her husband and four children are complaining, because the cause of their discomfort is the arrival of a sewing machine.
South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chairperson Jody Kollapen expressed concern on Monday at the number of permanent boom gates approved for Johannesburg by its metro council. ”Once granted, boom areas become closed areas because they can’t be monitored,” he cautioned.
As Israeli forces removed residents from the last Jewish settlement still to be cleared in the Gaza Strip on Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to win back support from the Israeli right by promising continued expansion of Israel’s West Bank colonies and no more unilateral pullouts.
With a combined age of 245 and multimillion-pound fortunes to match, the Rolling Stones could be forgiven for quietly hanging up their guitars. But instead the original bad boys of rock’n’roll kicked off their latest world tour in front of a sell-out crowd at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sunday with a concert so loud it had policemen patrolling outside with sound meters.
In a briefing to government and the media at its headquarters in Auckland Park today, the SABC announced a R240,3-million net profit for the 2004/2005 financial year.
"To find a peaceful and democratic solution to Zimbabwe’s problems the African Union and the Southern African Development Community need to develop an informed, honest and objective consensus as to its origins and avoid public pronouncements that unwittingly distort the facts," writes Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary for finance and economics, Tendai Biti.
It has been estimated that economic losses caused by invasive alien species account for almost 5% of the world’s combined gross national product, or some US$1,4-trillion a year. This situation is expected to worsen rapidly, with increased movement of species around the globe through trade, transport, travel and tourism.
Africa must urgently boost investments in aquaculture to fight hunger as natural fish stocks on the continent and elsewhere decline, scientists say. Africa is the only region in the world where the per capita fish consumption is dropping, placing an estimated 200-million Africans who depend on fish as a main part of their diet at risk of malnutrition.