There were a number of instances where a breakdown in the working relationship with Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla was discussed with suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli. This is according to government spokesperson Themba Maseko, who was speaking at a press conference in Pretoria on Monday.
Zimbabwe’s central bank on Monday raised its main lending rate to 800% from 650% to tame ”angry and formidable” inflation, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono said. The central bank also will launch a new currency soon to try to curtail a thriving foreign-exchange black market, he announced in a bi-annual monetary policy speech.
The African Union on Monday began probing an unprecedented attack on one of its bases in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur that left 10 peacekeepers dead and 25 missing, vowing to punish those responsible. ”The inquiry is under way and we will make its conclusions public,” AU Mission in Sudan spokesperson Noureddine Mezni said.
It has been described by one newspaper as ”splitting the Premier Soccer League [PSL] down the middle.” But what Finance Minister Trevor Manuel described as ”morally reprehensible” commission payments amounting to hundreds of millions of rands to PSL officials has seemingly united 45-million South Africans in outraged opposition to the professional soccer organisation.
Mining giant Anglo American said on Monday it would sell 61-million shares of AngloGold Ashanti Limited, cutting its stake in the world’s third-largest gold producer by almost half. The London-based company, which has a 41,8% interest in AngloGold, said in a statement that the shares would be offered as ordinary shares and American depository shares.
A South Carolina man who stored his severed leg in a barbecue smoker that was later auctioned off is locked in a custody dispute with a North Carolina man who found it. John Wood’s leg was amputated near the knee after a 2004 airplane crash. He asked doctors to give it to him so he could be buried as a whole man when he died.
Darrell Hair, the Australian umpire, was prevented from umpiring in top-level international cricket so as to appease non-white cricketing countries, it was claimed in the Central London Employment Tribunal on Monday. Hair is suing the International Cricket Council (ICC) for racial discrimination.
A computer expert testified in court on Monday that he was hindered when analysing whether former spy boss Billy Masetlha and his two co-accused had fabricated controversial hoax emails about an alleged African National Congress conspiracy, as he was given hard copies and not the electronic versions.
The state had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Fred van der Vyver was guilty of the murder of his student girlfriend Inge Lotz, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Prosecutor Christhenus van der Vijver was presenting closing argument in Van der Vyver’s trial.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would pull his country’s troops out of Darfur if it was determined that African peacekeepers who were killed at the weekend were not equipped to defend themselves. Twenty African Union soldiers were killed or injured and 40 missing after an assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night.