”Someone has snitched. The security men are coming. Shut the door, close the curtains and stay quiet.” Moments later, footsteps outside. A rap on the door. A mother squeezes her child tightly to her breast to muffle his cries. An older woman holds back sobs, her eyes red with tears.
Botswana has been showered with praise and been repeatedly dubbed the "African miracle". We, in contrast, suggest that the country’s democracy is elitist, power is centralised in the Presidency and there is growing autocracy in Botswana. The imminent handover of power by the current President, Festus Mogae, to the Vice-President, Ian Khama, is increasingly raising concern within Botswana itself.
The Western Cape wants to raise R750-million a year through levies on fuel, hotel beds and construction. "They’re not taxes. Each will have to meet national government approval, whether it is inflationary and investor-friendly. We don’t want to create a hostile environment." The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> questioned Premier Ebrahim Rasool on the economic rationale.
This past weekend saw a new military operation underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reports from the central African country say about 800 United Nations troops have been deployed in the north-eastern Ituri region to disarm local militias held responsible for the death of nine peacekeepers last month. The militias have also attacked local Congolese, prompting 70Â 000 to flee their homes.
A showdown looms in government circles over which government department will preside over environmental impact assessments (EIA) for mines. There is confusion about who will have the final say, after the publication of new EIA regulations. <i>Earthyear</i> reports on a power struggle over who should authorise environmental impact assessments for mining.
The Bush administration ran into its first roadblock in its plans to sharply reduce the prison population at Guantánamo Bay at the weekend, when a United States judge forbade the transfer of 13 inmates to Yemen for fear they would be tortured. ”We’re relieved,” Marc Falkoff, a lawyer for the Yemenis, told The New York Times.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will demand a radical shake-up of the West’s approach to the world’s poorest continent when his year-long Africa Commission calls for a doubling of aid, the dismantling of trade barriers, the writing off of debts and immediate action to stamp out corruption. The launch of the report on Friday will be used to urge a new partnership between developed and developing countries.
Urban poverty has a familiar face — the image of the overcrowded and garbage-strewn slum. It may surprise many to hear, then, that three quarters of the world’s poorest people — about 900-million persons — live in rural areas. ”Not simply poverty, but extreme poverty is the normal experience of the majority of the rural population,” says the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
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The 35 000 riders who took on the Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay cycle tour on Sunday were battered by near gale force winds and by early evening 158 riders had been injured in falls and one contestant had been flown to hospital after suffering a heart attack.