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/ 8 February 2008
Zimbabwe’s former finance minister Simba Makoni — who announced his bid to challenge President Robert Mugabe in presidential elections next month — on Thursday taunted the octogenarian leader, suggesting he could unseat Mugabe as the ruling party’s candidate and stand for the presidency in his place.
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/ 8 February 2008
British police have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by the force of a suicide bomb and not by an assassin’s bullet, he New York Times reported in its Friday editions. The findings, if confirmed, would support the Pakistani government’s explanation of Bhutto’s death.
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/ 8 February 2008
South African Rugby Union (Saru) deputy president Mike Stofile faces questions after Saru’s audit committee found he had no mandate to discuss the future of former Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer with him. Stofile, who has ambitions to defeat president Oregan Hoskins at Saru’s presidential elections next month, met Meyer on January 22 in Johannesburg.
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/ 8 February 2008
Democratic Republic of Congo mining investors hoping for reassurance about the controversial review of mining contracts were sorely disappointed recently when the country’s deputy mining minister, Victor Kasongo, announced that an initial study showed that not a single mining contract would escape renegotiation.
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/ 8 February 2008
When Sun Jun ignited a cacophony of fireworks recently, he was letting off steam as much as ushering in the Year of the Rat in the Chinese lunar calendar. For the Beijing taxi driver, two days’ holiday during the spring festival is a rare break in a work schedule that otherwise has him on the road almost every day of the year.
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/ 8 February 2008
I had suggested to Marina that we meet in the safety of the Intercontinental Hotel, where foreigners stay in Kabul, but she said no. She had been there once and government agents, suspecting she was a Rawa member, had arrested her. We met instead at a safe house.
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/ 7 February 2008
Former British special forces officer Simon Mann will go on trial in Equatorial Guinea, charged with plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the government said on Thursday. ”He will receive a fair trial with all procedural and institutional guarantees,” a government statement said.
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/ 7 February 2008
The ”Jeppestown massacre” trial was on Thursday postponed at the Johannesburg High Court because some of the accused intended applying for the recusal of the judge. Eleven of the 13 accused indicated that they intended lodging a formal application for the recusal of Judge Ratha Motkgoatleng on the basis of reasonable apprehension of bias.
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/ 7 February 2008
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered to help negotiate a ceasefire as Israel pounded Gaza on Thursday, killing seven people days after a suicide bombing claimed by Hamas rulers. Hamas promptly rejected the offer, with spokesperson Fawzi Barhum branding it a ”blackmail attempt against the Palestinian people”.
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/ 7 February 2008
Seventeen runaway fires were ravaging the Western Cape on Thursday afternoon, with the two most serious blazes at Simonstown, Cape Town chief fire officer Ian Schnetler said on Thursday. The two fires were reported at Redhill at 9am and at Naval Base at 11am and were burning strongly, he said.