A father told on Monday how he ran eight kilometres to hospital with his two-year-old child in his arms, after his shack fell down during a freak storm near Klerksdorp. Daniel Maputle said his shack in Jouberton township collapsed during the storm on Sunday, and his son, Bithatelo Maputle, was struck on the head.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) on Monday denied accusations of violence and intimidation during a bus drivers’ strike at Autopax Passenger Services. Autopax spokesperson Carl Newman accused striking Satawu members of violence and intimidation during pickets on Thursday and Friday.
It was business as usual for national lottery operator Uthingo after the Pretoria High Court on Monday set aside Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mphahlwa’s decision to award the lottery licence to Gidani. Judge Willie Seriti ruled that the process followed by the national lotteries board was flawed.
Britain’s top law officer gagged a media outlet for a second time from reporting on Monday on an alleged ”bombshell” memo at the heart of a cash-for-honours row threatening Prime Minister Tony Blair. The injunction by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith against the Sun newspaper came after he took similar action against the BBC on Friday.
Tired of trying to get a bit of peace and quiet in one of the world’s most densely populated countries, a Bangladeshi man with a head for heights has hit on the perfect solution. Each day carpenter and aspiring writer Salim Hossen Gaus, aged 25, winches himself 30m in a precarious home-made pulley to a small wooden platform he has built at the top of a palm tree.
Former World Cup winner Matthew Burke could be called on as Australia’s potential insurance policy for this year’s tournament as cover for the sidelined Chris Latham, reports said on Monday. The Australian Rugby Union has confirmed that 34-year-old Burke, who last played for the Wallabies in 2004 before heading to England to play club rugby, had been sounded out about the possibility.
The Iraqi prime minister has called for an investigation into an operation by Iraqi and British forces in Basra which found evidence of torture when they raided an Iraqi intelligence agency detention centre on Sunday. Officials at the detention centre told Reuters that 37 prisoners were freed in the raid.
President Robert Mugabe’s government will soon withdraw financial support for black-owned commercial farms resettled under Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform policy. The move follows charges by central bank governor Gideon Gono that the reforms had caused chronic food shortages in the one-time food exporter.
Conservationists may take legal action if environmental laws are broken in the building of 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday. Should the groups go forward with their legal action, the construction of the stadiums could face further delays.
In the ruined ballroom of the Bokor Palace Hotel it is easy to imagine, amid the shattered floor tiles and mouldy walls, the clink of champagne flutes and lively chatter of a night out in this tiny colonial hill station. A symbol of both the excesses of Cambodia’s golden age and the apocalypse that followed, the long abandoned hotel and casino is now only haunted by curious tourists.