The 26 finalists for the 2007 CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year award were announced this week, with nine of them from South Africa, representing the print media, television and radio broadcasting spectrum. The South African finalists include five producers working with M-Net’s news and actuality show Carte Blanche.
A 39-year-old prisoner at the Ncome prison near Vryheid claims to be the hit man in the murder of Free State official Noby Ngombane, media reports said on Wednesday. Ngombane was shot dead at his home in Bloemfontein on March 22 2005. He was a senior official in Free State Premier Beatrice Marshoff’s office.
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Nelson Mandela, the icon of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, marked his 89th birthday on Wednesday by launching his fellow elder statesmen on a new venture to reduce conflict and despair. The former South African president was the host and star turn at a ceremony to announce the formation of a brains trust of world leaders.
An interim interdict to prevent striking workers from entering, interfering with or obstructing access to Vodacom premises was extended on Wednesday. The Labour Court extended the interdict to Friday, when it will deliver a final decision on whether the interim interdict will be made permanent, said a Vodacom spokesperson.
Cricket South Africa announced a provisional 30-man South African squad on Wednesday, from which the final 15-man Proteas squad to play in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) inaugural World Twenty20 South Africa 2007 tournament will be chosen. The final, 15-man Proteas squad must be submitted to the ICC by August 11.
A white powder found at a post office at Alberton, south of Johannesburg, earlier this month was not anthrax, police said on Wednesday. Eleven people were admitted to hospital on July 6 after they came in contact with an envelope containing a white powder.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has postponed a court interdict that would have prevented a screening of the controversial documentary Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki by the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.
Nigerian police intercepted a truck carrying 62 people, including babies and children, in a suspected case of mass human trafficking, the agency in charge of fighting such crimes said on Wednesday. ”We think it is possible that human traffickers recruited these people,” said the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons.
Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis, convicted killers of South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani, on Wednesday invited leaders of the SACP to visit them in jail and ask any questions about the murder. Their legal representative faxed a letter to SACP secretary general Blade Nzimande inviting a delegation to meet them and their lawyers.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday rebuked Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube for breaking his vow of celibacy after state media ran pictures of his arch-critic in bed with a married woman. ”Since you are my archbishop, Pius, and you swore to celibacy, keep your vows,” Mugabe said at the burial of a former army chief.