Boris Johnson – who is running to replace Theresa May – faces court hearing for Brexit ‘lies’
Readers write in about Robert Mugabe and his regime,and other regime changes in Africa
Payments to thousands of Kenyans who were tortured during the 1950s insurgency could open the door for other victims of British colonial rule.
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The Scorpions must be disbanded because they are a counter-revolutionary force out to destroy African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma and destabilise the party, the Umkhonto weSizwe Veterans’ Association (MKVA) said on Saturday.
Excitement about the potential of Brazil as a massive new source of oil and gas intensified on Tuesday after a senior Energy Ministry official declared that the newly found Carioca field could have 33-billion barrels in place — leading to expressions of surprise and scepticism from industry experts.
Zimbabweans waited anxiously on Thursday for an end to a deafening official silence over the outcome of their presidential election, after the opposition took control of Parliament. The country’s electoral commission wrapped up final results on the parliamentary contest in the early hours, in which President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party lost its majority.
Prospects for a run-off in Zimbabwe’s election appeared to increase on Wednesday after state media said President Robert Mugabe had failed to win a majority for the first time in nearly three decades. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, however, insisted on Tuesday that he would win an outright majority from last Saturday’s election.
South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu on Wednesday proposed sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe in the wake of the unresolved presidential elections. Tutu told the BBC he favoured ”a mixed force of Africans and others” to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country.
The Cabinet has given the assurance that everything possible is being done to address the British government’s concerns about the security of South African passports. ”South African passports are among the safest … in the world, and that’s the reason why they are being targeted,” government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
The British government has no plans for a blanket ban on sportsmen from Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesperson said on Tuesday, rebuffing a report from the BBC. The spokesperson said Downing Street had been ”surprised” by the report suggesting that Britain was considering such a ban.
The British government is considering stepping up the pressure on Zimbabwe by banning its athletes from competing in Britain, the BBC has reported. The Inside Sport programme reported that the ban could notably prevent the Zimbabwe cricket team from touring England next year.
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/ 23 February 2008
Passengers travelling between European Union countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their cellphone numbers and credit-card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years.
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/ 13 February 2008
The Department of Home Affairs expects to introduce the proposed new smart-card identity document (ID) to the general public within two years, it said on Wednesday. The card will replace the old ID, which is prone to fraud. The new ID will be much more difficult to forge.
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/ 13 February 2008
When the world’s largest merchant ship ferries its monthly cargo of 13Â 000 containers between China and Europe it burns nearly 350 tonnes of fuel a day. The Emma Maersk supplies Britain with everything from toys and food to clothes and televisions, but its giant diesel engine can emit more than 300Â 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
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/ 10 February 2008
The United Kingdom is ”likely” to strip South Africa of its ”visa-free” status this year because of rampant corruption in the Department of Home Affairs, the Sunday Times reported. South Africans would have to pay £63 (nearly R1 000) and provide fingerprints, ”facial biometrics” and travel documents to obtain visas, the newspaper said.
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/ 14 January 2008
Russia announced on Monday it will not issue new entry visas to staff working in the British government’s cultural offices in two regions, sharpening a row that has soured already-poor relations. Russia ordered the British Council to halt work at the two regional offices from January 1 in a move both sides have linked to a diplomatic feud.
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/ 8 December 2007
A series of six black-and-white prints on display in an unassuming corner of the New York Public Library have sparked controversy on the airwaves and blogosphere quite out of keeping with the dark, marble-lined corridor in which they are hung. The prints show the mugshots of main members of the Bush administration.
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/ 4 December 2007
United States intelligence agencies undercut the White House on Monday by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the past four years. The secret report, which was declassified on Monday and published, marked a significant shift from previous estimates.
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/ 29 November 2007
A British teacher accused of insulting Muslims after her class called a teddy bear Mohammad spent more than five hours behind closed doors in a Khartoum courtroom on Thursday as a judge heard the case against her. She was arrested and charged after one of the school staff reported her to the authorities.
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/ 27 November 2007
Britain has asked the European Commission to approve the aid it has provided to struggling mortage lender Northern Rock, a Commission spokesperson said on Tuesday. ”Last night [Monday], the British government notified us,” EU competition spokesperson Jonathan Todd said.
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/ 27 November 2007
Three British bankers whose extradition to the United States caused a political storm last year are on the brink of a plea agreement that could involve an admission of wrongdoing over an alleged -million fraud related to the collapse of Enron.
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/ 22 November 2007
Commonwealth leaders are aiming to reach a decision by the end of the weekend on whether to make former Belgian colony Rwanda a new member, the head of the 53-nation grouping said on Thursday. Commonwealth heads of government are meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, from Friday.
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/ 20 November 2007
Urgently needed supplies of food, water and medicine were on Tuesday nearing people in remote areas of Bangladesh where a devastating cyclone has left millions homeless and thousands dead. With roads now cleared of hundreds of trees that had blocked aid convoys, officials said relief was finally starting to get through to the most inaccessible areas.
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/ 29 October 2007
The last flight out taxied from the sparkling new Harare airport, lifted over the city and dipped its wings in farewell. With that, at 9am on Sunday, British Airways (BA) said goodbye to Zimbabwe. Though symbolic, it’s not the first time BA has been forced out of Zimbabwe in the 75 years since the first flying boats opened up the aerial link with Southern Africa.
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/ 22 October 2007
World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report that also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown. Global oil production is currently about 81-million barrels a day — the report expects that to fall to 39-million by 2030.
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/ 20 October 2007
The British government is welcome to stay away from the Africa Union (AU) and European Union (EU) summit in December, said African National Congress secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated he would not attend the summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is allowed to attend.
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/ 20 October 2007
The military regime in Burma is still holding up to 2 500 people in prisons and labour camps around the country, and continues to arrest suspected dissidents, the British government claimed on Friday. The crackdown on the protest movement has only served to make Burma more unstable, a senior British diplomat said.
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/ 19 October 2007
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed black people are less intelligent than white people has pulled out of a British book tour and gone home, his publicist said on Friday. James Watson won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA.
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/ 18 October 2007
Environmental NGO Earthlife Africa has threatened a legal challenge to what it says is South Africa’s ”hasty and ill-informed” draft nuclear policy. The threat was made in a submission on Earthlife’s behalf by the Legal Resources Centre on the policy document, released by the Department of Minerals and Energy in August.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Monday that neither he nor any other senior British government minister will attend a Europe-Africa summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is there. Previously Brown had said he would boycott the December summit, but it has been unclear if Britain could be represented at a lower level.
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world’s second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts.
Global warming will produce stay-at-home tourists over the next few decades, radically altering travel patterns and threatening jobs and businesses in tourism-dependent countries, according to a stark assessment by United Nations experts. They said concerns about weather extremes and calls to reduce emissions-heavy air travel would make long-haul flights less attractive.