It was 3am when armed security agents hammered on the door of Khairat al-Shater’s flat in Nasser City; his daughter Zahra could only watch and comfort her distraught children while her father and husband, Ayman, were detained as Hosni Mubarak’s latest crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood got under way.
United Nations officials issued warnings on Thursday about the collapse of Gaza’s economy and called on the international community to open crossing points for trade. At least 68 000 Palestinians have lost their jobs in the past month since Israel closed the crossings out of the narrow, highly populated strip of land.
The South African flag will once again fly high at the next edition of the world’s premier sailing event, the America’s Cup, following the lodging of a second challenge in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday. Team Shosholoza founder and managing director Captain Salvatore Sarno confirmed by telephone on Wednesday night that he had personally lodged a notice of entry.
The City of Cape Town has to spend millions of rands every year to clean water from the city’s main supply dam, Theewaterskloof, which has become polluted by massive numbers of illegally introduced alien fish. The fish, particularly carp and barbel, are spreading throughout the province’s dams and rivers.
Take the gecko, famed for its ability to scale walls, and the mussel, renowned for its clamping quality, and you have the inspirations for a superglue that can stick, unstick and stick again. The glue, dubbed "geckel", can have innumerable uses, say the inventors, whose research is published in <i>Nature</i>, the British journal.
Taxi violence may soon be snuffed out through technology, if a pilot project next month to monitor vehicles by satellite to eradicate pirate operators succeeds, the Cape Times reported on its website on Thursday. The system will first be rolled out on a single route between Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Prospects for the struggling dairy-farming sector are looking better following a decision by milk processors to raise prices this year, according to a farmers’ representative body. Milk Producers’ Organisation MD Etienne Terre’Blanche said the current milk shortage occurred after processors slashed prices from early 2005.
The JSE was slightly higher at noon on Thursday as miners gained on sustained strength in precious metals with banks in focus on vague talk that Standard Chartered Bank might make a buy-out offer for Nedbank. At midday, the all-share index was up 0,32%. Resources gained 0,48% and the gold- and platinum-mining indices added 0,57% and 1,75% respectively.
Two British teenage girls arrested in Ghana allegedly in possession of several kilogrammes of cocaine were remanded in custody when they appeared in court on Wednesday, officials said. The hearing at a juvenile court in Accra, their second appearance in a week, took place behind closed doors.
Emerging markets specialist Standard Chartered is in takeover talks with South Africa’s fourth-biggest bank, Nedbank Group, media reports said on Thursday. Nedbank spokesperson Graham Lillie declined to comment on the report. ”We don’t comment on market speculation”.