Togo’s electoral commission has set April 24 as the date for presidential elections, news reports said on Friday. The way for elections was cleared when Faure Gnassingbe stepped down as president last weekend after heavy international pressure.
Swedish public television (SVT) mistakenly published an obituary for Pope John Paul II on its website, where it remained for more than five hours before it was taken down, the broadcasting company said on Friday. "This was a very unfortunate mistake," SVT spokesperson Johanna Niemi said.
A Jewish settlement security chief was caught red-handed stealing thousands of chickens in the West Bank with two Palestinian accomplices disguised in carnival masks overnight, police said on Friday. The 42-year-old man was arrested along with a 20-year-old fellow settler and two Palestinians from east Jerusalem, said Israeli police.
Mukhtaran Bibi thought her nightmare was over when the men who gang-raped her — on orders from village elders — were sentenced to death more than two years ago. But on Thursday the nightmare began again. The victim of Pakistan’s most notorious rape case wept bitterly after a court in the southern city of Multan overturned the verdict against the rapists.
South African company directors spend more time on board matters than their global counterparts, according to results of a survey released on Friday. ”At an average of 20 hours per month, South African directors devote 17% more time to their efforts than the global average…” said Korn/Ferry International, a management consultancy which released the results.
The South African Department of Health has awarded contracts for the supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for the treatment of HIV/Aids to public health facilities countrywide to seven different pharmaceutical companies. The R3,4-billion tender has been awarded to local group Aspen Pharmacare, as well as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Abbot, Merck Sharp & Dome and GlaxoSmithKline.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) will intervene in the truck drivers’ strike, the Road Freight Employers’ Association (RFEA) said on Friday. ”… the CCMA has contacted the RFEA and the five unions involved about a meeting this afternoon [Friday] following a deadlock in negotiations yesterday afternoon,” said Nico Badenhorst, chief executive of the RFEA.
Kenyan Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi has urged Britain to formally apologise for the brutality it committed against the country’s independence fighters, Mau Mau, during the colonial period. Murungi was speaking on Thursday during the launch of a book, Britain’s Gulag: The brutal end of empire in Kenya, by Caroline Elkins of Harvard University.
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The law treats guilt like pregnancy — in court you can’t be half guilty. But life is more complicated, making for a poor fit when the messy compromises of existence are dragged under legal scrutiny. When the Sunday Times previewed corruption-accused Schabir Shaik’s entry to the witness box, the paper speculated on which Shaik would emerge.
The South African Communist Party expects greater sacrifices from white farmers than from any other sector to help alleviate poverty in rural areas, farmer’s union Agri SA said on Thursday. This followed a meeting between the two groups in Pretoria on Wednesday.