President Thabo Mbeki must release the letter he allegedly wrote to George Bush asking the American president to ”butt out” of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Mbeki’s four-page letter to Bush apparently criticised the United States for taking sides against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
President Thabo Mbeki called on G8 countries on Friday to follow through on promises of support for Africa’s socio-economic rescue plan Nepad. ”The other G8 members have got to respond in the manner that Japan has,” Mbeki said at the end of a three-day development conference in Yokohama, Japan.
A New Zealand man has been convicted for assaulting a teenager with a hedgehog after asking him if he wanted to "wear a hedgehog helmet". William Singalargh (27) was fined for assault and offensive behaviour by a court in the east coast North Island city of Whakatane after a more serious charge of assault with a weapon — the hedgehog — was dropped.
A Japanese man puzzled by food mysteriously disappearing from his refrigerator got a shock when he found out a woman had been living in his home for months without permission, police said on Friday. The 57-year-old man living alone — or so he thought — installed a security camera and called the police when he saw images of someone walking around his home while he was out.
Forty-seven people were arrested for public violence on Thursday after a protest against Anglo Platinum’s relocation of bodies from a cemetery in Sekuruwe near Makopane turned violent. Limpopo police spokesperson Captain Sebotsaro Motadi said the protest started on Wednesday but only became violent at 6am on Thursday.
A complaint against the Daily Sun‘s reporting on the recent xenophobic attacks in Gauteng was submitted to the press ombudsman and the South African Human Rights Commission on Thursday. One of the major issues was the use of the term ”aliens” for immigrants by the newspaper.
In a series of three ATM bombings in less than half a day in Gauteng, gangs of robbers on Friday morning made off with undisclosed sums of cash. In Strijdompark in Randburg, a Standard Bank ATM was blown up at the Motor City Centre, Gauteng police said. ATMs in Atteridgeville and Orange Farm were also targeted.
North West agriculture minister Jan Serfontein and interest groups are to try to develop a standardised programme for working with predators. This follows a lion attack on Tuesday on the farm Uitspan, near Mafikeng. David Moloana (50), of Mareetsane village, was killed while cleaning a drinking pen situated in a lion cage.
Mining magnate Brett Kebble gave about R260 000 to the former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni, according to the trustees of Kebble’s bankrupt estate, a media report said on Friday. This allegation was contained in affidavits in an application for a summary judgement that would force Yengeni to pay this amount back to the estate.
African leaders and Japan pledged on Friday to get to work to ramp up food production, calling it ”critical” for the continent’s development amid a crisis over soaring prices. Japan also pledged to step up foreign aid and investment to Africa, at a three-day summit with 51 African nations in Yokohama, near Tokyo.