The Sudanese government said on Friday it will try anyone who violates human rights in Darfur, where 17 months of fighting involving African rebels, Arab militiamen and government troops has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than a million.
Militia chief scorns slaughter charge
A year after the death of government weapons scientist David Kelly and two Iraq inquiries later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is struggling to convince the public that his decision to oust Saddam Hussein by military means was right. The fallout for Blair from Kelly’s suicide has been immense.
South African Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has launched a stinging response to comments made by United Nations special envoy on HIV/Aids in Africa, Stephen Lewis. Lewis told the 15th International Aids Conference in Thailand that South Africa is not doing enough to treat and prevent the disease.
Mother-to-child HIV policy unchanged
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) will ask the government to investigate Telkom to ascertain if retrenchments are necessary, it said on Friday. Telkom has indicated that it will retrench 1 381 workers. CWU president Joe Chauke told journalists in Johannesburg the need for retrenchments must be probed.
World number-one rough diamond miner De Beers, 45% held by Anglo American, is expected to have had its best first-half sales performance in the six months to June 2004 since its 2000 financial year, a survey of four analysts shows. Sales at De Beers’s marketing arm, the Diamond Trading Company, for the six months to June are expected to be $3,15-billion.
The South African rand broke free of its narrow trading range on Friday, breaching the R6,00 per dollar level in afternoon trade. The rand was quoted at R5,9913 per dollar from an overnight close of R6,1001 — the first time it has traded below R6,00 since October 1999.
It is a week since Leigh Matthews was last seen, but the police and the public are working as hard as ever to trace the kidnapped student, police said on Friday. ”We must find her, that’s all. There is no way anyone will lose hope,” said Superintendent Chris Wilken. He said support from the public has not diminished.
The Rolling Stones used to sit at the table in the corner for breakfast and their first snifter of the day. At 3pm. "That’s when their day started," says George Watson, owner of The Dock bar and restaurant in Montauk for 31 years. Officially part of the Hamptons, Montauk is in every sense another planet. Where the Hamptons is Gucci, Montauk is more grunge.
Benin customs police said on Thursday they have arrested four traffickers trying to smuggle 27 Beninese and Nigerian children out of the country on a minibus, first to Togo and then on to Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The traffickers were stopped with the children aged between six and 12 at the Hillacondji customs post on the Togo border.
Hong Kong shut down for business and battened down the hatches as a tropical storm packing winds of 75kph slammed into the territory on Friday. At least two people were injured and 10 flights in and out of the city were cancelled before Tropical Storm Kompasu made landfall in the rural north-eastern Sai Kung district.