Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi has accused Europe of deliberately provoking the drowning of illegal African migrants as they try to reach Europe by sea, the official Jana news agency reported on Friday. ”Dozens [of migrants] die and hundreds drown or are drowned deliberately,” the official Libyan news agency quoted Gadaffi as saying.
Suspected Taliban militants have released Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan more than three months after he was kidnapped in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region, a senior government official said on Saturday. Pakistani television channels said the envoy, Tariq Azizuddin, had been freed in Afghanistan.
A carnival ride at an annual fair in California celebrating the popular Calaveras county jumping-frog contest collapsed on Friday, injuring all 24 people aboard. The carnival ride, called the Yo-Yo, collapsed shortly after 6pm local time on Friday at the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee.
Three-and-a-half tonnes of dagga worth about R3,4-million were seized by Beaufort West police in one week, Western Cape police said on Friday. Spokesperson Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe said that in all three cases vehicles were stopped while heading for Cape Town.
Any increase in electricity prices should occur gradually over five years, Eskom was told on Friday at a summit in Sandton on the electricity crisis, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported. The government, labour, the African National Congress and community forums were represented at the summit.
Burma said on Friday that more than 133 000 people were dead or missing in the cyclone disaster, nearly doubling the toll from the worst disaster in the country’s history, which hit two weeks ago. State television said 77 738 were dead and 55 917 missing — with 19 359 people injured — according to the latest figures.
Former Goodwood police station commander Siphiwo Given Hewana is to go on trial in the Parow Regional Court in September for allegedly interfering in the drunken-driving case against former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni.
A full bench of judges on Friday reserved a ruling on the bid by the City of Cape Town and the Democratic Alliance (DA) to quash the Erasmus commission. The commission was set up by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool to probe the DA-led city’s investigation of renegade councillor Badih Chaaban.
The education minister’s budget was called ”simplistic” by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) on Friday, following the budget speech in Parliament on Thursday. ”Sadtu wishes to express its concern at the simplistic nature of the education minister’s budget speech to Parliament,” said Thulas Nxesi, general secretary of the union.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai vowed on Friday to lift his country out of the ”darkness” under President Robert Mugabe and voiced confidence he will win a run-off presidential poll. The comments came shortly after his party said Tsvangirai would go home on Saturday after more than a month away following disputed elections.