With mud spattered over a dress that looks like a selection from the cheap Chinese imports so readily available in Zimbabwe today, Griffin Chawatama bends over a home-made metal bowl, sifting through the crushed rock for gold flakes. Chawatama is one of hundreds of illegal gold panners engaged in a cat-and-mouse battle with the police since descending in Shurugwi last May.
Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur needs a United Nations peacekeeping force, despite President Omar al-Beshir’s repeated opposition to deployment of Western forces, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday. Annan said that such a force would be essential to uphold the "tenuous and incomplete" peace accord between Khartoum and rebel groups.
Zimbabwean police have arrested more than 280 bakers and shopkeepers for defying a state-imposed ceiling on bread prices meant to combat inflation, a newspaper said on Thursday. "At least 282 bakers and shopkeepers have been arrested in Harare for charging more than Z$85Â 000 (US83c) for a standard loaf of bread," the state-controlled <i>Herald</i> reported.
A surge in prices of basic commodities and a sharp slide by the Zimbabwe dollar on the parallel market in past weeks could undo a fresh initiative by President Robert Mugabe to halt the economy’s free fall, further putting pressure on his grip on power, analysts said.
South Africans, it is fair to say, are frightened by China. We complain about the cheap imports that are doing South African garment workers out of their jobs, we fret about the "insatiable" demand for natural resources, and the re-ordering of influence on the rest of the continent. And when we are really nervous, we talk about drug gangs that trade smuggled abalone for mandrax in the coastal villages.
A Palestinian woman was killed and 14 other people, including children, were wounded on Wednesday in a fresh Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip, local medical sources and witnesses said. The sources said a missile, fired by an Israeli aircraft towards a car, instead slammed into a house near the town of Khan Yunis, killing 27-year-old Fatima al-Barbarawi.
Apparently more at ease with patrol than petrol, blundering London police officers filled up their vehicles with the wrong fuel 150 times last year, the Metropolitan Police Authority said on Tuesday. The gaffes were revealed in its latest figures on driving safety.
French researchers have given scientific backing to what shepherds have intuitively known for thousands of years: that the lamb that bleats most and loudest has the best chance of survival. A research team used digital recorders to record lambs’ bleats and matched this with the mother’s response.
A Turkish student said on Sunday he was poised to set a record at a nationwide university entrance exam … by giving the wrong answer to all 180 questions. Speaking to reporters after Sunday’s exam, which 1,5-million youths sat, Sefa Boyar said he was hopeful he would achieve the record.
A Florida dog that chomped for help by cellphone, saving the life of her owner in a diabetic seizure, fetched a humanitarian award in Miami on Monday. Belle the beagle dialled the emergency number 911 on her owner Kevin Weaver’s cellphone last February when he began to convulse and lapsed into unconsciousness.
A former worker at the Royal Australian Mint who stole thousands of dollars from his employer by hiding Aus$2 coins in his boots was on Wednesday jailed for three years. William Bosia Grzeskowiak (48) admitted to stealing Aus$135 852 (about R719 000) in coins and notes between April last year and February this year.
Baboons at a British safari park are making a monkey of England World Cup fans by stealing the flags from their cars, the park’s bosses said on Wednesday. The animals have amassed a huge collection of the red-on-white St George’s cross flags at Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool, north-west England.
Gold Fields confirmed on Wednesday that one mineworker was killed in a surface blasting accident at its Beatrix Mine in the Free State shortly before 9am on Wednesday morning. Three other workers were injured and taken to the St Helena hospital in Welkom, the group said.
Low-fare airline kulula.com on Wednesday announced its first foray into the financial-services sector with the launch of a kulula.com-branded Visa credit card centred on an innovative rewards programme. The card, issued under licence of FirstRand Bank Limited, and managed by First National Bank, will offer cash back for every rand spent, which will be used for flights on kulula.com.
Sales of music for use on cellphones are expected to nearly double over the next five years, a European cellular content provider said on Wednesday. From an estimated $7,4-billion this year, sales are expected to reach $13,6-billion in 2011, said Arena Mobile, a Spanish cellphone content supplier.
Nigerian police intensified efforts on Wednesday to seek the release of two Filipino oil workers a day after they were kidnapped near the oil city of Port Harcourt, a spokesperson said. "We are making frantic efforts to effect their release," Rivers state police spokesperson Ireju Barasua told Agence France-Presse.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has written a letter to the group chief executive of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), asking him if there was any truth to reports that his corporation had banned four top political commentators.
German state prosecutors said on Tuesday two neo-Nazis were being detained after a weekend attack in which a teenager of Ethiopian origin suffered a fractured skull. The attack in Schoenefeld, on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin, was clearly motivated by xenophobia, said prosecutors in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin.
Somali transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf on Tuesday arrived in Addis Ababa for talks with the African Union, whose plans to deploy peacekeepers in the country face a raft of challenges including opposition from increasing powerful Islamists, officials said.
General John Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, held talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on local and international efforts to combat terrorism, state media said on Tuesday. The talks came as Ethiopia faced accusations of deploying its troops inside Somalia to protect the country’s fledgling interim government.
United States President George Bush on Monday warned Iran of "progressively stronger political and economic sanctions" if Tehran refuses to freeze sensitive nuclear activities in return for talks. "If Iran’s leaders want peace and prosperity … they should accept our offer," Bush said in a speech to the US Merchant Marine Academy.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, the architect of United States-China policy and Washington’s point man on Sudan, resigned on Monday to take up a position with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. "It is time for me to step down," Zoellick told a news conference at the State Department, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by his side.
Militiamen loyal to Somalia’s Islamic courts raided cinemas, switched off the generators and expelled audiences watching the World Cup, before announcing that showing Western films in public had been banned, officials said on Monday. A day before Islamic Sharia law took effect in Jowhar heavily armed Islamic fighters shut down all public cinema halls until further notice.
Primedia Limited announced on Monday that it had received approval from the competition commission last Wednesday to purchase the remaining 14% of 94.7 Highveld Stereo, which it acquired from Mineworkers’ Investment Company (MIC) in November 2005.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has made a key contribution to making the African dream a reality and no more will Africa be perceived as a dark continent without any rule of law and development, the ruling African National Congress said on Monday in celebration of his 64th birthday.
Iran loses more than a billion dollars a year because petrol and refined oil products are smuggled to neighbouring countries, a senior police official was quoted as saying on Monday. "Every year, 1,8-billion litres of refined oil products worth 10,8-billion rials [$1,18-billion] are smuggled abroad," press reports quoted General Ali Soltani, director of the campaign against economic crimes, as saying.
Palestinian factions sought on Monday to find agreement on how to end a political crisis, deadly clashes and fiscal meltdown in a deal that could implicitly recognise Israel and avert a July referendum. Bitter rivals Hamas and the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas were to meet late on Monday, nearing the end of a second round of crisis.
The Islamic alliance in control of key areas of Somalia on Monday urged world powers to pressure Ethiopia to withdraw troops from Somali territory, saying it would spawn more bloodshed in the Horn of Africa nation. Islamic clerics said several hundred Ethiopian troops had crossed into Somalia over the weekend.
Zimbabwe’s long-term economic survival prospects look dimmer by the day with analysts warning that the government’s mortgaging of the country’s minerals to Asians is sure to lead to more troubles in the future for the world’s fastest-shrinking economy.
While senior managers express real anxiety about bribery and corruption in their emerging-market operations, many are still not taking the threat seriously enough. Robust business ethics, backed up by proper control processes, have to be ingrained into local operations, and not just comprise an extension of head-office culture.
About 200 displaced white farmers from Mashonaland West province have turned down an offer of farms by the government, saying there was no guarantee the government would not in future turn back on the offer and evict them again, reports <i>ZimOnline</i>.
It’s quite an amazing week of remembrance, with other things going on in the midst of it. It’s June 16, and much is going on to mark it. Books are being published, concerts are being held, and everybody is asking everybody the question: "Where were you on June 16 in 1976?" Eery refrains of "Where when you when John F Kennedy was shot?"