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/ 5 February 2005
The United States unexpectedly poured cold water on Friday over British hopes for a bold Group of Seven initiative to increase aid flows to the world’s poorest countries. Germany, however, said it will propose slapping a Europe-wide tax on airline fuel as a way to finance increased help for the developing world.
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/ 5 February 2005
When his captors threatened to throw Dhruv Karki into the flashing white swirls of the river Seti, the student activist thought his life was over. Blindfolded and having been beaten with a rifle butt over the past four hours in an army camp in western Nepal, Dhruv was mentally and physically exhausted.
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/ 5 February 2005
Bush Bucks woes continued after losing 4-2 to Wits University in a Premier Soccer League match played at the Bidvest Stadium on Friday night. Wits’ Jonathan Solomons intended cross resulted in the home side’s first goal in the 14th minute. Sydney Nkalanga added Wits’ second seven minutes later.
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/ 5 February 2005
Graeme Smith registered his maiden limited-overs international century to lead South Africa to a series-levelling three-wicket win over England in the third Standard Bank one-day cricket match at Sahara Oval St George’s on Friday. It was a terrific effort by the South Africans after some poor results this summer.
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/ 5 February 2005
About 40 families, numbering about 100 people, in Alexandra have been left homeless after a fire, apparently caused by a paraffin stove, razed their shacks on Friday. Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said it appears that a woman had left her paraffin stove on when she went gambling, causing the fire.
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/ 5 February 2005
United States President George Bush’s new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, insisted on Friday that the US has no plans to attack Iran ”at this point”. Rice was speaking after Downing Street talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at the beginning of a week-long tour of Europe and the Middle East.
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/ 5 February 2005
She is proud of being African, though she prefers to wear her hair straight. She is just as interested in having a career as a Western woman, though perhaps more coy about sex. That, at least, is how the first Kenyan edition of Cosmopolitan sees its target audience. What is absent from the magazine says as much as its content.
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/ 5 February 2005
It’s going to be all right. The pope is on the mend. He has had a few sips of water, has begun eating, and is breathing normally again. While the ailing 84-year-old was lying in hospital this week, Vatican business continued pretty much as normal, and the cogs of the Vatican’s vast internal bureaucracy will continue to turn in his absence.
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/ 5 February 2005
The Prime Minister of Georgia, Zurab Zhvania, was found dead in an apartment in Tbilisi early on Thursday, apparently poisoned by carbon monoxide from a faulty gas heater. The body of a friend, Raul Usupov, the deputy governor of the Kvemo-Kartli region, was also found in the prime minister’s apartment.
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/ 5 February 2005
A New York state court ruled on Friday that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, a decision hailed by gay-rights groups as a major victory. Justice Doris Ling-Cohan said preventing gay and lesbian couples from receiving marriage licenses violates basic freedoms guaranteed in the state Constitution.