A SEVEN-year-old lioness named Lea who spent the first years of her life in an Italian zoo eating pasta left Rome on Thursday headed for South Africa where she is to be released into a game park. “She’s a real kitten, she even eats pasta,” one of her keepers told the Italian Telenews agency before the big cat was caged up and put on a flight for Johannesburg where she is expected to arrive early on Friday. The seven-year-old, who spent the first year of her life in an apartment before being transferred to a Rome zoo for dangerous animals, will undergo training before she is released into the Rhino and Lion Park just outside Johannesburg. The lioness has already satisfied veterinary surgeons that she can adapt to life in the game reserve after living in captivity. – AFP
THEY SAID IT, from Sapa
“Whoever is caught looting red-handed will only get judgment from God.”
A message from the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), the Rwandan-backed rebel group that controls Goma. RCD officers have executed a number of people caught looting in the city.
“Those policemen did not do their job. They must all go back to the depot to learn from scratch… My name is dirty… I’m looking for my name…”
Jan Pyp van Wyk, one of the six men arrested in connection with the rape of baby Tshepang in the Northern Cape. They were released after DNA tests could not link them with the crime.
“Often they arrive here on Monday and play funeral-funeral, from where the bodies are laid out to where the people cry.”
Sally Hendricks, teacher of a class with learning problems at the Westbury Primary School in Johannesburg.
“The instability has gone on far too long. The levels of poverty and conflict are increasing, and if you add to that a fraudulent election, it has to be avoided.”
President Thabo Mbeki about Zimbabwe.
“Is anyone out there?”
A Johannesburg rate payer in an e-mail to the city accounts department. Several residents have complained about the city’s billing system and call centre.
“Yeah, and I bet they didn’t find a brain either.”
Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh, after Pollock told journalists that a brain scan of Steve Elworthy, who was hit by a blow on the helmet and lay comatose for some time during Tuesday’s match, had come back clear.