Gay rights groups in California were celebrating victory in the latest round of the protracted struggle over gay marriage on Monday after a judge in San Francisco ruled that the state’s ban on homosexual marriage was unconstitutional. ”The denial of marriage to same-sex couples appears impermissibly arbitrary,” said Richard Kramer, a San Francisco superior court judge.
The ordeal began with a gun in the ribs in the middle of the night. By morning, after a pancake breakfast, the man accused of killing four in an Atlanta courthouse rampage was offering to hang curtains in his hostage’s flat, and she was an American hero.
A five-year-old boy in southern China survived a fall from a sixth floor apartment when his trousers snagged on a washing line, a news report said on Tuesday. The boy, who fell after climbing to a window of the apartment, was snagged by the trousers and suspended upside down outside an apartment on the fifth floor.
The Western Cape created 194 000 new jobs in the three years before 2003. But the official unemployment rate increased to 26,1%, or by 612 000 people, according to this year’s provincial budget documentation. The rate in 2000 was 22,6%, according to the <i>Provincial Economic Review and Outlook</i>, tabled last Tuesday with the Western Cape budget.
When you’re right, boast about it. In my first column for the year, I pointed out how misguided the notion was that the FirstRand deal was ”social investment” rather than black economic empowerment (BEE). The criticism came about because the three BEE participants were all charitable trusts. I argued that one should look beyond this.
South Africa has to make space for policy-making structures to avoid political unrest over land reform, the executive director of the African Institute of Agrarian studies said on Monday. Professor Sam Moyo was speaking at a farmers’ summit held by the National Farmer’s Union in Pretoria.
Thousands of elephants in Central Africa are killed each year to cater to world consumer demand for ivory, much of which passes through the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, wildlife trade expert Edmond Martin said on Monday in Nairobi. Martin said Khartoum now holds one of the world’s largest markets for illegal ivory.
At least 20 magistrates on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast went on strike on Monday to demand a 1 000% pay hike as the Kenyan justice ministry warned that court officers not reporting for duty will be fired. ”The strike is historic,” said Justus Munyithya, chairperson of the coastal branch of the Law Society of Kenya.
A prospective buyer has offered the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) R7-million for its luxury beachfront mansion in Cape Town. The luxury Sunset Beach dwelling, dubbed variously the ”spook house” and ”Lindiwe’s folly” in reference to former intelligence minister Lindiwe Sisulu, has been on the market for at least nine months.
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Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s legal adviser Linda Makathini saw only a copy of a loan agreement between Zuma and Schabir Shaik, the Durban High Court heard on Monday. Since the start of Shaik’s trial, the state has been trying to locate the original loan document.