Rain- and wind-battered Madagascar off the east coast of Africa was on Friday weathering its fourth heavy cyclone in recent months. Intense Cyclone Indlala hit land in the tropical island on Thursday and continued to rage over the island’s vanilla plantations on Friday, flooding cities in the north.
Cameron Shepherd scored a try and kicked three conversions and four penalty goals for a personal total of 23 points as the Western Force beat the Queensland Reds 38-3 in a Super 14 rugby match on Friday. The win was the second in a row at home for the Force, who did not have a win at Subiaco Oval before last week’s 18-17 victory over the Wellington Hurricanes.
The fourth suspect in the murder of Anglo-Zulu War expert David Rattray has appeared in the Dundee Magistrate’s Court. Sabelo Xolani Mpanza (28) appeared in the northern KwaZulu-Natal court on Thursday. He was denied bail and the matter was postponed for a week to allow time for his legal-aid application to be processed.
Malawi has denied Zambia’s main opposition leader Michael Sata entry into the country and deported him, a Zambian immigration official said on Friday. Immigration Department spokesperson Mulako Mbangweta said Sata, leader of the opposition Patriotic Front, was deported from Malawi late on Thursday.
International talk-show host and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey on Friday opened a R12-million school in Kokstad on Friday amid much fanfare and celebration. ”The journey began five years ago. We were so impressed with the teachers and the principal that we thought your school was not good enough for you,” said Winfrey at the opening.
Residents in Ramocha near Rustenburg assaulted a so-called prophet and burnt her house down on Thursday night after paying her to protect them from a tornado that never came, North West police said. More than 800 angry people had gathered at 43-year-old Dikeledi Njusa’s home, demanding she refund them their R2.
Africans should hang their heads in shame over what is happening in Zimbabwe, Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu said on Friday. ”What an awful blot on our copybook. Do we really care about human rights? Do we care that people of flesh and blood, fellow Africans, are being treated like rubbish, almost worse than they were ever treated by rabid racists?”
Visitors to a popular Oslo sculpture park discovered early on Thursday that several naked statues had been censored, with paper rectangles pasted on their genitals and bottoms, Norwegian media reported. "There is enough nudity in the newspaper. Let’s not have it in the park!" read a note posted on a nearby column in the park.
Forget free toppings. A New York restaurant has started offering a $1 000 (about R7 400) pizza covered with caviar and lobster that the owner says is the most expensive pizza on Earth. The Bellissima Luxury Pizza is piled with lashings of caviar, fresh lobster, wasabi and crème fraiche.
<b>NOT QUITE THE MOVIE OF THE WEEK:</b> <i>Marie Antoinette</i> is a brave development on Sophia Coppola’s part, but we need less insipid characters, or more complex situations, if we are to care, writes Shaun de Waal.