Youth representatives from across Africa will meet next week in Morocco to discuss the continent’s most pressing problems, including HIV/Aids, poverty, the environment and the technology gap. ”We bring the young together and we let them loose, let them work together to solve these problems,” said Djibril Diallo, chairperson of the Pan-African Youth Leadership Summit.
The death toll in an epidemic of ”bloody diarrhoea” in the central region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 23, a health official said on Thursday. The epidemic broke out on July 29 at Kabongola, about 240km from Kindu, the main city of the central Maniema province.
Anger over Indonesia’s inability to douse forest fires that have smothered parts of Malaysia with a dangerous haze mounted on Friday as the crisis worsened in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The opposition Democratic Action Party held a protest at the Indonesian embassy in pollution-shrouded Kuala Lumpur.
The African National Congress has engaged in a series of "winks and nudges" in dealing with the human rights abuses and autocratic behaviour of President Robert Mugabe, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. "Mugabe’s ‘cocking a snook’ or giving a ‘two’s-up’ to whiteys and the West seems to appeal to a sizeable constituency in the ANC," he said.
Can foreigners make credible films about South Africa? And, where does one draw the line between fiction and documentary, between emphasising the aesthetic aspect of film or the political, asks Wilhelm Snyman.
Floods and related disasters have killed 910 people in China so far this year with another 218 missing, the International Red Cross said on Friday as it launched an emergency appeal for ,4-million in aid. Most of the deaths occurred since May, when the flood season kicked in.
Marguerite and Andre Debry, 100 and 107 years old respectively, may well be the oldest married couple in the world, the daily Le Parisien reported on Friday. The pair from the central French town of Argenton-sur-Creuse met shortly after World War I and celebrated their 81st wedding anniversary on Friday.
Blackman Ngoro, who was ousted this week as media adviser to the mayor of Cape Town, has bounced back with a new approach to race relations. He has offered space on his website for ”Khoisan intellectuals” to write about their history, and urged that the term ”coloured” should be buried ”once and for all”.
Bahrain’s newly crowned 1Â 500m world champion Rashid Ramzi began his quest for a golden double with an easy win in his 800m first-round heat at the World Athletics Championships in Montreal on Thursday. Mbulaeni Mulaudzi of South Africa struggled to get the third automatic qualifying spot.
French Open champion Rafael Nadal and American Andre Agassi remained on course for a possible final showdown as they booked quarterfinal berths at the ,45-million ATP Masters Series in Montreal on Thursday. Nadal emerged with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over France’s Sebastien Grosjean.