The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition force, called on Egyptians on Monday to boycott local council elections due on Tuesday in protest at the disqualification of most of its candidates. The group said its members had received more than 3 000 court rulings recognising their right to stand in the elections.
Opposition parties on Monday criticised President Thabo Mbeki’s assessment of Zimbabwe’s elections. Mbeki’s remarks, made in Britain on Sunday, indicated he was either woefully out of touch with reality in Zimbabwe or he was attempting to ”deliberately mislead the world’s media”, the Democratic Alliance’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard said.
The Paris leg of the Beijing Olympic flame relay was cut short on Monday after citywide protests against China’s crackdown in Tibet forced the torchbearers to take refuge on a bus. The torch’s journey by foot ended outside the French Parliament, where protesting deputies hung a Tibetan flag on a railing.
A Zimbabwean court on Monday released a United States journalist and a British national on bail after charging them with reporting on the March 29 elections without accreditation, their lawyer said. "They have both been released on Z$300-million bail," lawyer Harrison Nkomo told journalists outside the court.
Eight ATMs have been bombed in South Africa in less than a week, an escalating trend that has become a nearly daily offence in the crime-ridden country, police said on Monday. Three police officers and two civilians appeared in court on Monday in connection with the bombing of a cash machine last week, said police spokesperson Louis Jacobs.
Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will consult senior religious leaders and disband his Mehdi Army militia if they instruct him to, a senior aide said on Monday. The surprise announcement was the first time Sadr has proposed dissolving the Mehdi Army, one of the principle actors in Iraq’s five-year-old conflict.
Seven Durban men who allegedly stabbed a 20-year-old petrol attendant to death were taking revenge and mistook their victim for a robber, police said on Monday The seven — aged between 17 and 20 — were due to face a murder charge in the Chatsworth Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Weather-pattern changes are expected to have a negative effect on health and quality of life, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Monday. ”We need to take actions aimed at strengthening our infectious-diseases control, ensure safe use of water supplies and coordinate health actions in order to respond,” she said.
The trial of Najwa Petersen, accused of murdering her entertainer husband, Taliep, has been delayed yet again — this time by a clash over how much information she needs about the charges she faces. The case got under way in the Cape High Court on Monday, but Judge Siraj Desai sat for less than two hours before postponing it to Wednesday.
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Political leaders should never stay in power for over a decade, South Africa’s ruling party president Jacob Zuma has said, making clear his opposition to the path taken by some African rulers. Zuma spoke to the Wall Street Journal in an interview before neighbouring Zimbabwe held elections last month.