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/ 19 January 2007
NOT THE MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Blood Diamond is the cinematic equivalent of American fighter jets bombing Somali civilians, with the only distinction that it also manages to be boring, writes Shaun de Waal.
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/ 19 January 2007
Clashes between tribes of Arab nomads and ethnic African farmers competing for Darfur’s resources have killed 150 people in the last two weeks, according to the United Nations mission to Sudan. The UN mission also said that 64 people among the latest wave of refugees chased by separate pro-government Janjaweed militia raids have been diagnosed with leprosy.
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/ 19 January 2007
Media reports that Pretoria police had beaten a Sunnyside prostitute into a coma were an ”absolute thumb-suck”, national Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi said on Friday. Talking to a South African National Editors’ Forum delegation about media communications, Mbeki said these reports show how difficult police work can be at times.
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/ 19 January 2007
A mystery man made his 58th straight visit to Edgar Allan Poe’s grave on Friday morning and was watched by the largest group of onlookers to date, the event’s most faithful viewer said. Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, said 55 people braved a chilly morning to catch a glimpse of the annual ritual.
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/ 19 January 2007
Just two days into the new academic year, pupils and teachers at the Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela public school in Thornhill woke to find most of their school building gutted by fire, Eastern Cape police said on Friday. Five of the classrooms and an administration block were burnt to ashes on Thursday night, a spokesperson said.
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/ 19 January 2007
An annual meeting of social activists worldwide made no tangible achievements since it began in 2001, but has highlighted the importance of social issues, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Friday. The seventh World Social Forum (WSF) begins in Nairobi on Saturday.
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/ 19 January 2007
Somalis expressed growing fears of a relapse into violence on Friday as the African Union met to discuss the troubled deployment of a stabilisation force. Visiting United Nations envoy Francois Fall told interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed on Thursday Somalia had a better chance of peace than at any other time since the era of infighting among warlords began 16 years ago.
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/ 19 January 2007
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi moved swiftly on Friday in a meeting with editors to revoke instructions that police information to the media be restricted to only provincial channels. ”Whatever it was, that is revoked,” he said at the meeting with a South African National Editors’ Forum delegation in Pretoria.
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/ 19 January 2007
The Waterkloof Four will know on January 30 if they will go to jail for the murder of an unknown man and the assault of another. On Friday magistrate Len Kotze heard final arguments from the defence and in the case of Christoff Becker, Frikkie du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk and Reinach Tiedt.
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/ 19 January 2007
The government should increase its subsidy to Child Welfare South Africa (CWSA) to prevent the exodus of social workers to overseas countries, CWSA CEO Ashley Theron said on Friday. Speaking at a media briefing in Johannesburg, Theron said CWSA was losing much-needed social workers because they could not afford to give them competitive salaries.