No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Moussaoui trial to hear tape from September 11 plane

A cockpit recording from a plane hijacked on September 11 will be played in public for the first time at a trial to decide whether Zacarias Moussaoui should be executed. Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed to a prosecution request to play the tape from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger uprising against the hijackers.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Hoax e-mail accused back in court

The IT executive at the centre of an alleged hoax e-mail conspiracy within the African National Congress had no action pending in the high court over his arrest, the Pretoria Regional Court heard on Thursday. Muziwendoda Sikhona Kunene’s representatives had asked that the case be set aside because of high court action over his arrest on a search-and-seizure warrant rather than an arrest warrant.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Bulawayo hospital runs out of space in its morgue

Zimbabwe’s overstretched health facilities are finding it hard enough to cater for living patients — but now one hospital doesn’t even have room for the dead. Bodies are piling up on the floor at the morgue at Mpilo Central Hospital in the city of Bulawayo and no more corpses are being accepted, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Life insurers save R437m in claims fraud

Life insurers saved R347-million in 2005 by preventing dishonest policy holders and financial advisers, as well as crime syndicates, from making fraudulent claims. This was an increase of nearly 40% on the previous year, Gerhard Joubert, chief executive of the Life Offices’ Association said on Thursday.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Eminem divorces first wife a second time

United States rap superstar Eminem has filed for divorce from his wife Kim Mathers less than three months after he remarried her, a publicist for the singer said on Wednesday. The couple — whose stormy relationship has been the focus of much of Eminem’s music — walked down the aisle for the second time on January 14 after reconciling following their 2001 divorce.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

The Economist: ANC prizes loyalty above competence

The African National Congress is the target of some heavy-handed criticism in <i>The Economist’s</i> April 8 South Africa survey. Under an umbrella that spells out the ANC’s difficulties in turning itself into a modern, democratic party, <i>The Economist</i> is forthright: "The ANC still has a top-down authoritarian structure where loyalty to the political cause is prized above almost everything else, including competence."

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Don’t mock the new Toyota RAV4

While true 4×4 enthusiasts love to mock the Toyota RAV4, every month between 200 and 300 South Africans reach into their wallets and vote quietly for the little soft-roader. Why not? It’s very well built, it’s capable of more than most buyers would expect off-road, and it’s a Toyota. It symbolises eternal youth, and as such, they reckon, it sends out a message that you’re, well, special.

No image available
/ 6 April 2006

Zuma’s daughter had ‘uneasy feeling’

Jacob Zuma’s daughter did not want the woman he allegedly raped to spend the night at Zuma’s Johannesburg house last year as she had an ”uneasy feeling” about the woman. Dudzile Zuma (23) told the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday ”I got an uneasy feeling about her … something about her just wasn’t sitting right with me.”