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In Pictures | Firefighters now fight for their jobs

In Pictures | Firefighters now fight for their jobs

BARRY CHRISTIANSON FIREFIGHTERS risked their lives to put out the flames threatening Cape Town. But more than 500 of them might be fired for trying to negotiate better working hours. Sunrise on the morning of 20 April was calm on Signal Hill. Joggers and cyclists were out getting their exercise for the day. Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain poked up through a sea of smoke, with a single plume rising from the mountain. There was a sense of relief in the air. The disaster was finally over.  The fire had been extinguished in most places other than Devil’s Peak. While…
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Anti-Asian racism: Why K-pop and U.S. stars speak up after shootings

Anti-Asian racism: Why K-pop and U.S. stars speak up after shootings

A fatal shooting in the United States this month of eight people, including six Asian-American women, has triggered calls to stop rising anti-Asian violence - with South Korea's K-pop stars, BTS, becoming the latest to speak up. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that such attacks, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, were "wrong, un-American, and must stop", as his administration announced new measures to counter the trend. Here's what you need to know about rising anti-Asian racism:   Which celebrities have spoken out? K-pop sensation BTS, which dominated world music sales in 2020 with the year's top two best-selling albums, called…
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Celebrities defend trans rights, rejecting wave of U.S. laws

Celebrities defend trans rights, rejecting wave of U.S. laws

JACK GRAHAM HUNDREDS of celebrities have joined advocacy groups in an open letter in support of transgender rights, criticizing a raft of U.S. states that want to bar young, trans-Americans from playing school sports or getting medical help. The signatories - from feminist Gloria Steinem and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to actor Regina King and singer Selena Gomez - called for an end to the "long history of assaults" against trans women and girls. Never before has it been more dangerous to be trans, the letter said, denouncing "anti-transgender rhetoric" and the barriers facing trans people across multiple industries. The…
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A drone’s eye view of the Holy Land as Christians look to Easter

A drone’s eye view of the Holy Land as Christians look to Easter

STEPHEN FARRELL  SEEN from the air, the fragility of humanity as it must have been in the Holy Land in centuries past is plain to see - ancient monasteries clinging to precipices, tiny fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee, deserts gnawing at the edges of towns. For the Christian faithful, the Biblical journey and legacy of Jesus are written in stonework and monuments across the landscape, straddling modern political faultlines. But modern pandemics, like ancient plagues, are no respecters of political and belief systems. For a year the Christian sites of the Holy Land, like the sacred places of…
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‘Frugal design’ brings medical innovations to communities that lack resources during the pandemic

‘Frugal design’ brings medical innovations to communities that lack resources during the pandemic

DR. Msandeni Chiume Kayuni found herself in the middle of a supply crisis as COVID-19 spread to Africa in April 2020. As head of Pediatrics at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, her team faced a critical shortage of N95 and regular surgical face masks. Nurses and doctors were striking. REBECCA RICHARDS-KORTUM, Professor of Bioengineering, Rice University THERESA MKANDAWIRE, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Malawi “We had members of hospital staff put their tools down because they did not feel it was safe to practice,” she told us in an interview. Ingenuity kicked in. The Malawi team purchased…
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Boat carries 1,200 survivors to safety

Boat carries 1,200 survivors to safety

EMIDIO JOZINE and EMMA RUMNEY A boat carrying 1,200 survivors of a deadly attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents in northern Mozambique reached safety in the port of Pemba on Thursday, some of them crying on arrival after spending days hiding in the bush. Aid workers were at the crowded port to give food to those disembarking from the green and white ferry, while police and soldiers kept control of crowds of people excited to see relatives rescued during the attack that began last week in Palma, a Reuters reporter at the port said. Many people were believed to have scattered…
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Lockerbie bomber’s family to appeal conviction to UK’s top court

Lockerbie bomber’s family to appeal conviction to UK’s top court

THE family of a Libyan man found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing which killed 270 people will seek to appeal the conviction direct to Britain's top court after being refused permission by the Scottish Appeal Court, their lawyer said. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, an intelligence officer who died in 2012, was jailed for life in 2001 for the murder of 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 residents of the Scottish town of Lockerbie in the deadliest militant attack in British history. In January, the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland rejected an appeal brought by his family, who had…
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On the wrong side of the law

On the wrong side of the law

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER TWO senior crime fighters who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law have been granted bail of R20 000 in the Pretoria Magistrates Court. Advocate Matric Luphondo, a senior prosecutor in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Lieutenant-Colonel Ayanda Plaatjie, from the Hawks and Kebone Masange, the head of the Department of Human Settlement in Mpumalanga were arrested and charged with fraud. It’s the state’s case that the three attempted to bribe a prosecutor to drop the case against Masange, whose citizenship is under investigation. Masange, a Zimbabwean national, was arrested in September 2020 on…
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Egypt received 500,000 tourists in January-March 2021

Egypt received 500,000 tourists in January-March 2021

EGYPT received 500,000 tourists in the first three months of 2021 and earned tourism revenues of between $600 million and $800 million, deputy tourism minister Ghada Shalabi told Sky News Arabia yesterday. Tourism revenues plunged 70% in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, with numbers of visitors sinking to 3.5 million from 13.1 million in 2019.
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