Durban’s Mangosuthu University of Technology was officially closed down on Friday following a week of student protests. A pamphlet distributed at the institution and signed by vice-chancellor and principal Aaron Ndlovu ordered all students to vacate the institution’s residences and leave the premises by noon.
![]()
African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma asserted, in an interview published on Friday, that power in South Africa rests with the ruling party, not with his rival, President Thabo Mbeki. ”Power lies in the ANC,” Zuma — who ousted Mbeki in a bitter ANC leadership contest three months ago — told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper.
Oil eased to under a barrel on Friday, but stayed within sight of its record high from the previous session, with a tumbling United States dollar, fund flows and Opec’s (the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) reluctance to pump extra crude providing support.
The Wellington Hurricanes withstood a ferocious late fightback from the Otago Highlanders to win their Super 14 clash 10-6 at Dunedin on Friday. The Hurricanes spent most of the second half camped in their own quarter but defended superbly against waves of attacks from the Highlanders.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Canadian jurist Louise Arbour, said on Friday she will step down when her current term in office expires on June 30. ”It is very much for personal reasons. I’m not prepared to make this commitment for another four years,” said Arbour in Geneva.
Fighting triggered by a rebel assault on Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, last month killed about 700 people, President Idriss Déby Itno said in comments broadcast on Thursday. Rebels opposed to Déby attacked Ndjamena on February 2 and besieged his presidential palace.
Sri Lankan troops killed 38 Tamil Tiger rebels for the loss of four soldiers in fresh fighting in the island’s north, the military said on Friday. Thursday’s fighting came as the military captured stretches of Tiger-held terrain in the north-western district of Mannar as part of a wider strategy to gradually retake the Tigers’ northern stronghold and win a 25-year civil war.
Iraqi police said on Friday 68 people were killed in coordinated bombings blamed on al-Qaeda in a packed shopping area in central Baghdad on Thursday. Another 120 were wounded when two bombs exploded within minutes of each other on Thursday in Baghdad’s mainly Shi’ite Karrada district, police said.
The University of the Free State (UFS) has obtained a further court interdict to maintain calm on the main campus in Bloemfontein and on the Vista campus, also in the city, a UFS spokesperson said on Friday. Spokesperson Anton Fischer said the interdict was obtained because a number of outside organisations were planning to hold mass demonstrations.
Nokia on Friday announced a deal to sell handsets worth a total â,¬2-billion to China Postel during 2008, in the company’s largest market. The world’s number one cellphone maker said the deal includes the development of technological infrastructure and marketing with China Postel, with which it has worked since 1998.