Nearly 200 000 terrified Sudanese villagers have sought sanctuary in one of the most inhospitable areas on Earth, the deserts of Chad. They are some of the more than one million people chased from their homes in the past 16 months in what humanitarian workers call a systematic campaign of terror in Sudan’s Darfur region.
A group that has been holding a United States marine hostage for more than a week has beheaded the soldier and will soon release a video showing the murder, the group announced in a message posted on Arabic websites on Saturday. US military officials are checking the report, but could not confirm that it was accurate, reports said.
Sex between men is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka and lesbianism has been officially labelled ”sadism”, but the island’s gays believe their long fight for equality is picking up pace amid regional moves to legalise homosexuality. Sri Lanka’s penal code is a legacy from British colonial rulers.
Marine archaeologists have recovered thousands of artefacts believed to date back to the Ming dynasty from a 400-year-old shipwreck in Malaysian waters, local media said on Sunday. More than 6 000 pieces of porcelain were salvaged from the wreck off the eastern Terengganu state.
An elderly Australian on Sunday backed up Lindy Chamberlain’s claim that a dingo took her baby when she was camping 24 years ago at what was then called Ayers Rock. Frank Cole (78) told the Herald Sun newspaper that he shot the dingo that took Azaria and that it still had the infant’s body in its mouth when it died.
The way the Eastern Cape provincial government spent its health budget has significantly contributed to the health-care crisis in the province, a new book demonstrates. Key findings include that more than 81% of the provincial health department’s budget from 1996 to 2003 was not properly accounted for.
Warders at the medium-security prison and the C-Max prison in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal, as well as warders at St Alban’s prison outside Port Elizabeth, have embarked on a strike, SABC Radio News reported on Saturday. The warders were reportedly demonstrating outside the prisons.
Two years after it replaced the much-maligned and ineffective Organisation of African Unity, the African Union seems much more determined to tackle the continent’s crises, but has one major problem: money. During the AU’s third ordinary summit, a strategic plan for the coming three years will be unveiled.
The plight of Southern Africa’s earliest inhabitants, the San Bushmen, comes to the fore on Monday when Botswana’s High Court begins hearing a landmark land case in the Kalahari desert. A group of 243 San Bushmen are challenging their resettlement from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world’s largest sanctuaries.
Western Province (WP) kicked off their Currie Cup campaign in style as they thrashed the Pumas 44-18 at Newlands on Saturday evening. Veteran left wing Pieter Rossouw scored two tries, but young scrumhalf Tertius Carse was the man who raised the eyebrows on his Currie Cup debut.