Hadima Ebrahim Ally (72) can’t remember the last time she felt this elated. Casting her eyes over the cheering crowds and beyond, to the city skyline and harbour in the distance, the great grandmother adjusts her hijab (scarf) and beams. A land claim victory is a homecoming for a Durban community descended from Zanzibari slaves.
Tony Leon is assured of continued leadership of the official opposition Democratic Alliance because there is no one else in the party ready — or willing — to fill his shoes. This is the overwhelming consensus among public representatives after former Western Cape education minister Helen Zille had been approached by public representatives to run against him. But she’s made it clear she would not stand.
Representatives of Botswana’s Bushmen who have been resettled away from their ancestral land in the Kalahari desert on Thursday accused the government of Botswana and the De Beers diamond mining giant of stealing their lands to exploit their mineral wealth.
Famed United States photographer Richard Avedon was hospitalised over the weekend following a brain haemorrhage, a spokesperson for The New Yorker magazine said on Thursday. The photographer is in a hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and is ”in critical but stable condition,” said a spokesperson.
Bill Gates has had a bad week at the office. The man who has made it a personal mission to see spam eradicated from our inboxes saw Microsoft’s Sender ID anti-spam technology returned to sender by the Internet Engineering Task Force, and was subsequently snubbed by the world’s biggest Internet service provider, America Online (AOL).
Politicians, industry leaders and environment groups across the world welcomed the news on Thursday night that Russia had rejuvenated international efforts to combat climate change by ratifying the Kyoto protocol. President Vladimir Putin’s decision isolates the United States, and brings Russia closer economic and political ties with the European Union.
Unions and management were in a last-minute meeting on Thursday night to try to prevent a strike at Anglo Platinum, while a 17000 worker strike at Impala Platinum continued. Anglo Platinum (Amplats) management brought a revised offer to the National Union of Mineworkers at 6pm.
The newly established Pan African Parliament will send a fact-finding mission to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, which the UN says is the scene of the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today. The Parliament’s president says the mission will examine ”what is happening on the ground, who is doing what and how much is being done by the Sudanese government…”
Dozens of children were killed on Thursday when three car bombs exploded in a coordinated attack in Baghdad that left 44 people dead and more than 200 injured.
Health ministry officials said at least 34 of those killed were children. Dozens more were injured. Many suffered shrapnel wounds; others had limbs amputated.
Democratic challenger John Kerry won the first televised presidential debate against Republican President George Bush late on Thursday, according to instant polls. A Gallup poll for CNN gave Kerry a 46% to 37% win over the president. It added that 46% of those asked now have a better opinion of Kerry against 21% for Bush.