A bitter energy dispute jeopardised oil supplies to Western Europe on Monday as Belarus struck out at the neighbouring Russian Federation by cutting off a vital transit pipeline crossing Belarusian territory. The closure of the pipeline meant no Russian oil was being pumped along it to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.
The newly established International Criminal Court risks being "fatally damaged" by demands that it cancel its first-ever war-crimes indictment because it is an obstacle to ending Uganda’s 20-year civil war. The dispute over a slew of charges against the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, has opened a rift between African governments.
Zimbabwe requires more than $2-billion to build a new hydroelectric station, refurbish and expand existing power plants to avert an energy shortfall likely to black out the country and much of Southern Africa this year, according to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority.
United States President George Bush will unveil his new strategy for Iraq in a prime-time speech to the nation on Wednesday at 9pm local time, the White House said on Monday. "The president will be addressing the nation on his plan for a way forward in Iraq and the global war on terror," spokesperson Tony Snow said.
A former World War II fort in the North Sea, which was settled 40 years ago and declared a state with its own self-proclaimed royal family, is up for sale, the <i>Times</i> said on Monday. The tiny Principality of Sealand, which began life as Roughs Tower in 1941, is a 550 square metre steel platform perched on two concrete towers 11km off the coast of Harwich, eastern England.
A leopard loped into the bathroom of a home in western India, attracting thousands of curious onlookers for hours before it was captured by officials, a report said on Monday. The leopard strolled around a neighbourhood in western Vadodara city for a few hours before settling down in the bathroom of the Sukhadia family, the <i>Times of India</i> said.
The bodies of a husband and wife who were swept out to sea along with their daughter by a wave in Camps Bay in the Western Cape were recovered in Bakhoven, police said on Sunday. Spokesperson Captain Randall Stoffels said paramedics tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate the woman on Sunday.
Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s President, has promoted loyalists to key positions and said he will shut down a pro-opposition television station on the eve of his third term in office. Chávez has signalled more radical policies by tightening his grip in the run-up to his inauguration on Wednesday.
One of the most senior clerics in Poland’s Roman Catholic Church was forced to resign on Sunday 48 hours after becoming archbishop of Warsaw because of revelations that he had collaborated with communist security services for decades. The denouement followed a fortnight of disclosures in the Polish press.
"We have displayed a consistent inclination since we assumed management of our affairs to opt for mediocrity and compromise, to pick a third and fourth eleven to play for us." South Africa? No. The description by Chinua Achebe was of Nigeria, his homeland, published in the 1983 monograph <i>The Trouble with Nigeria</i>. Yet it is apt for South Africa in 2007.
As a born-and-bred Capetonian, I am relieved that the controversy surrounding the development of our new 2010 Fifa World Cup stadium appears to have been put to bed once and for all. The situation was becoming an embarrassment not only for the city, but also for South Africa as a whole.
A week has passed since the first day of the New Year. Already we’re preparing to meet the challenges we’ve set ourselves by way of New Year’s resolutions. However, as much as it’s traditional to improve our lot through 10 easy steps, so it is traditional that most, if not all, resolutions have already been broken.
A senior Israeli official dismissed as "absurd" a report in the British <i>Sunday Times</i> that the Jewish state had drawn up plans to destroy arch-foe Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities in a tactical nuclear strike. Quoting several Israeli military sources, the British paper said that Israel has made plans to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.
Thousands of security personnel patrolled Bangladesh’s capital on Sunday as opposition parties began a nationwide transport blockade to try and force electoral reform ahead of polls this month. Dhaka’s usually bustling streets were empty of cars and buses on Sunday, a working day in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and schools and colleges were shut.
At least 50 people were feared to have burned to death on Saturday after fire engulfed a bus in the eastern Bangladeshi town of Comilla, police said. "The bus with nearly 60 people on board hit an auto rickshaw causing its gas cylinder to explode. A fire started and swept through the bus," said Mohammed Kamal Uddin, district police inspector in Comilla.
United States President George Bush hosted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday for talks and a dinner to work out the kinks in transatlantic relations — but not any knots in her shoulders. "No back rubs," Bush joked, an apparent reference to the awkward scene when he briefly massaged her back at the July 2006 summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations.
Zambia on Friday said it would invite tenders from oil firms to prospect for new petroleum and gas fields found in the country’s north-west, adding that the successful bidders would be named soon. Mines Minister Kalombo Mwansa said the areas where the oil and gas reserves were discovered last year had been demarcated so that private firms could bid for specific blocks.
Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, was on Thursday plunged into darkness after striking workers at state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) switched off power supplies to the city. The Zesa workers joined state doctors who have since last week abandoned hospitals protesting against poor salaries and working conditions.
<i>Borat</i>, the movie, so provocatively foregrounds prejudice that you can easily overlook that it’s also a portrayal of journalism. True, this is not a film you go to see because it is about a reporter. That Borat is a fictitious Kazakhstan journalist is incidental to filmmaker Sacha Baron Cohen who created and acted the boorish character.
It was inevitable that scuffles would ensue. The queue hadn’t moved for hours, and a rumour had worked its way down from somewhere up near the Pearly Gates that a small-time snake-oil salesman called Yengeni had choked to death on a prison-issue oyster and was about to get preferential acceptance to Bliss without going through the proper channels.
An Australian bank has blushingly admitted issuing a credit card to a cat. Messiah, a ginger tom, was given a credit limit of Aus$4Â 200 ($3Â 300) dollars. Messiah’s owner applied for an additional Visa card in his name on her account with the Bank of Queensland to test its identity security system — and was astonished when it was granted.
United States President George Bush could send up to 40Â 000 more troops to Iraq when he unveils his revised Iraq policy, US media said on Thursday. Reports gave estimates of between 9Â 000 and 40Â 000 extra troops to be sent to Iraq, where military sources say there are currently some 130Â 000 US troops. The move could be controversial as the Iraq war is increasingly unpopular with the US public.
Long-suffering Zimbabweans face bleak prospects in 2007 as a spate of price increases and industrial action by medical personnel appear set to reinforce a seven-year-old economic crisis. Just a few days into the new year, prices of most goods and services have gone up in sympathy with last week’s increase in the cost of fuel.
Motorists who flout the law by driving home after a few drinks will soon be up against a formidable foe: their cars. Toyota is working on a system of sensors that will automatically shut down a car’s engine if it thinks the person behind the wheel has had too much to drink.
Giovanni Viglione of northern Italy took turning 100 in his stride, passing his driver’s test with flying colours, the Ansa news agency reported on Wednesday. Viglione, who lives alone, needs to drive his Fiat 500 to his watercolour class in Rovereto, near Verona.
A two-year-old calf that escaped slaughter at an abattoir in Mumbai for a Muslim festival has been named George, after the American president, a report said on Wednesday. George bolted and ran into a scrap yard where he kept butchers at bay for 20 hours, the <i>Times of India</i> reported.
A Chinese firm running Zambia’s largest textile company has temporarily shut it down and placed about 700 workers on forced unpaid leave following massive losses, management said. Che Ming, a managing director, said the Zambia China Mulungushi Textiles, which has been having problems paying wages to its workers, had been closed to allow the company to source a capital injection.
German-United States auto giant DaimlerChrysler said on Tuesday it had reached an out-of-court settlement with insurers over a legal squabble surrounding some comments by the group’s former chairperson regarding the merger of Daimler and Chrysler in 1998.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday urged his governing Labour Party to stick to his centrist economic and social agenda in his 10th and what is set to be his final New Year’s message as Britain’s prime minister. Blair, who has vowed to quit by September, urged the former leftist party to rely on his centrist instincts of "ambition and compassion".
The war waged by the French President, Jacques Chirac, against "Anglo-Saxon" cultural imperialism has suffered a blow as the Germans announced they were pulling out of a European search engine which it was hoped would rival Google. Last year Chirac announced a series of ambitious projects designed to challenge the global dominance of the United States.
Thailand’s military-installed government on Monday blamed politicians who had lost out in last year’s coup for the deadly bomb attacks that ripped through Bangkok on New Year’s Eve. After the Thai capital’s worst night of bombing for decades, embassies, including those of Britain, the United States and Australia, warned that there could be more explosions.
Deadly bombings cut short New Year celebrations in Bangkok and an ETA bombing prompted Madrid to cancel its festivities, while bad weather hampered revellers from New Zealand to Scotland. But the capitals of Bulgaria and Romania saw their biggest parties since the fall of Communism 17 years ago as tens of thousands sang, danced and drank their way into 2007 and the European Union.