President Thabo Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo has resigned, a statement issued by the Presidency confirmed on Thursday afternoon. Khumalo has served as the president’s spokesperson for five years. He will step down at the end of July to take up a senior executive post in the private sector.
James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek TV series and motion pictures who was famously associated with the command ”Beam me up, Scotty”, died early on Wednesday. He was 85. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, a friend said.
Harry Potter is ready to cast a spell over the book industry this weekend, as the sixth volume in the boy-wizard series looks set to become the world’s biggest-selling novel as soon as it goes on sale. In South Africa, the price for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is set to range from R129 to R249 a copy.
At least 37 people were killed and about 700 injured after four bombs ripped through London’s underground network and tore the roof off a bus during Thursday-morning rush hour. Leaders from around the world have expressed shock and anger.
London’s entire underground railway network was closed down on Thursday after a series of explosions that caused a ”large number of casualties” and at least 33 deaths, police said. An explosion ripped through a double-decker bus just minutes after blasts rocked the underground. British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said there had been ”terrible injuries” in the attacks.
Explosions rocked the London subway and a double-decker bus on Thursday, causing at least two deaths, injuring scores of riders and sending victims fleeing from blast sites. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the explosions a "series of terrorist attacks". A group calling itself "The Secret Organisation of al-Qaeda in Europe" has claimed responsibility for the blasts in a web statement, reports said.
South Africans in London spoke to the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> immediately after Thursday’s series of blasts that hit the city’s underground railway system and a double-decker bus, describing the chaos and confusion that ensued as news of the explosions spread through the city.
Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was sentenced to an effective 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption in the city’s high court on Wednesday. Judge Hillary Squires likened corruption to a ”cancer eating away at the fabric of corporate probity” and said Shaik had ”lost his moral compass”.
”When Sandi Majali wrote cheques after getting a multimillion-rand advance from the state oil company, two of the first recipients were relatives of Cabinet ministers.” Thus starts the Mail & Guardian‘s follow-up to its ”Oilgate” exposé, which a Johannesburg High Court interdict kept out of print two weeks ago. On Tuesday, the court lifted the interdict.
Schabir Shaik left the Durban High Court on Thursday following his conviction on two counts of corruption and one of fraud relating to alleged irregular financial dealings with Deputy President Jacob Zuma. A spokesperson for Zuma said the deputy president will study the judgement before commenting.