Recent revelations on how the African National Congress used its investment arm Chancellor House to divert taxpayer’s money into its own coffers explains the ruling party’s obsession with black empowerment policy, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday.
China is struggling to prevent burgeoning protests in Tibet from overshadowing its Olympic preparations amid reports that monks have gone on hunger strike after the region’s biggest demonstrations in almost 20 years. Thousands of armed police have surrounded monasteries outside Lhasa, following marches against Chinese rule this week.
The police should be more cautious when dealing with deportation matters, Mpumalanga’s department of safety and security said on Friday, after a South African teenager was awarded damages for being arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
State media in Zimbabwe on Friday accused prominent South Africa-based Mail & Guardian publisher Trevor Ncube of donating R300Â 000 to President Robert Mugabe’s rival Simba Makoni two weeks ahead of scheduled parliamentary polls.
South Africans are not saving enough power, President Thabo Mbeki told a community development workers’ indaba [meeting] in Midrand on Friday. ”I get a sense that we haven’t quite got this message through that it’s a national challenge which requires a response by all South Africans,” he said.
A top executive at the Coega industrial zone has assured Rio Tinto its planned smelter is still viable, despite the mining company’s decision to delay the project due to an electricity crisis. Rio announced on Thursday it would delay the project at Coega, near Port Elizabeth, because of power shortages in South Africa.
It might have been called Harry Potter and the Eternal Sequel. Faced with the last in a series of books that ended with a climactic showdown, the producers of the ,5-billion-and-counting Harry Potter film franchise did what came naturally: they decided to turn the final installment into two films.
Cuba has eased restrictions on the sale of computers, DVD players and other electrical goods, in the first sign of economic liberalisation since Fidel Castro retired last month. The appliances will go on sale immediately and be available to anybody who can pay, according to an internal government memo.
The South African Rugby Union (Saru) has distanced itself from speculation that a Japanese team might be included in an expanded Super 14 competition. The idea was floated by Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O’Neill who was quoted as saying the idea of adding a Japanese team was on the agenda of Sanzar.
An armed gang stormed into a Durban bank on Friday, holding staff and customers at gunpoint, KwaZulu-Natal police said. ”Five armed suspects entered, took cash and a customer’s vehicle and fled,” said Superintendent Willie Olivier of Durban’s Organised Crime Unit