The African National Congress has hailed the development of Afrikaans over the past 130 years as an inspiration for South Africa’s other indigenous languages. It has also pledged its commitment to protecting and promoting Afrikaans as well as South Africa’s other indigenous languages.
President Thabo Mbeki called on the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Monday to mobilise for the African National Congress in the upcoming local government elections. ”We will, of course, win the upcoming local government elections,” Mbeki told a Cosatu central committee meeting.
For children in Mozambique who are orphaned by Aids, burying parents may simply signal the start of their battle with the pandemic. All too often, these orphans also find themselves among those most at risk of contracting HIV. A conference was held recently in Maputo to discuss support for the elderly in caring for orphans.
Iraq’s leaders vowed to unveil a draft Constitution on Monday after marathon talks edged the country’s ethnic and religious rivals towards a potentially historic compromise. A special sitting of the Parliament has been called in the capital on Monday evening to review the text, hours before a midnight deadline for approval.
The Cypriot airline that owned the plane that crashed into a Greek mountain on Sunday, killing all 121 people on board, grounded all of its aircraft on Monday. Helios Airways said no flights would be operating from Cyprus, despite earlier reports that it was operating a normal schedule.
The Japanese prime minister on Monday apologised for atrocities committed by his country during World War II, on the 60th anniversary of the end of the conflict. In a written statement, Junichiro Koizumi expressed his ”deep reflections and heartfelt apology” for Japan’s colonisations and invasions in Asia during the war.
”Crisis? What crisis?” asks the leader of an African country in which children are starving. Juxtapose his words with a picture of a malnourished baby, and the story writes itself. But the story of Niger may not be quite as simple as the media script. For one thing, Niger’s President Mamadou Tanja may be right when says there is no famine in his country.
Guarded optimism prevailed in the capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province after the signing on Monday of a peace pact that Acehenese hope will end nearly three decades of war and suffering. Thousands of people jostled for a glimpse of televisions beaming the signing ceremony in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.
Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on Monday, but while some settlers were resigned to their fate, the mood in other settlements was defiant, prompting tense stand-offs with security forces. As the evacuation started, the Israeli Cabinet voted 16-4 to approve the second stage of the pull-out.
With 63 more deaths in and around the western Indian city of Mumbai, the death toll due to leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases brought on by floods has climbed to 233, a local news agency report said on Monday. A senior health official told the PTI news agency that there are signs of the outbreak abating.