Each time a Durban woman objected to being kissed while she was being raped, her attacker pressed a Smith and Wesson revolver to her head, the Scottburgh High Court heard on Tuesday. His HIV-positive accomplice then asked her: ”Was it fun? Are we having a good time?”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s year-on-year inflation rate could reach over 100 000% by the end of the year. ”If recent monthly trends continue, [IMF] staff projects that year-on-year inflation could well exceed 100 000% by year-end,” Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, director of the IMF’s Africa department, said.
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Visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday that he and United States President George Bush will ”step up” pressure to end violence in Sudan’s Darfur province, as the two leaders wrapped up talks. ”I’ve agreed with the president that we step up our pressure to end the violence that has displaced two million people,” Brown told a press conference.
Liberia on Monday resumed diamond trading after lifting a self-imposed ban on the gems, officials said. The embargo imposed four years ago had been in line with a United Nations ban on the country’s diamonds, blamed for fuelling a barbaric 14-year civil war in the resource-rich West African nation.
A total of 103 petitions have been filed to Cameroon’s highest court to annul results of this month’s legislative elections that handed President Paul Biya’s governing party a landslide victory, a court official said on Monday. A number of the 45 parties figuring on the election lists on July 22 had filed petitions, but most came from the main opposition parties.
The South African emerging players cricket squad that participated in the 2007 Emerging Players Tournament in Brisbane, Australia, over the past two weeks landed back home with the trophy in hand after beating strong teams from Australia, New Zealand and India. On Saturday South Africa beat New Zealand in the final of the tournament by 82 runs.
Opposition parties in the Johannesburg city council are furious at the ruling African National Congress (ANC) limiting their speaking time to four seconds per councillor. The parties quoted the ANC’s chief whip in the council as saying: ”If a party cannot say what they want to say in eight seconds, it is not worth saying.”
The possibility of declaring fire-ravaged parts of Mpumalanga disaster zones could not be precluded, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Monday. Earlier in the day, Mufamadi and Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks conducted a helicopter surveillance of sites destroyed by fires in the province.
Theunis Olivier was of a sober and sane mind when he sodomised and later strangled six-year-old Steven Siebert in Plettenberg Bay, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. In his statement submitted to the court, Olivier said he was normal when he committed the crime.