For those who have lifestyles instead of lives, death must appear incomprehensibly terrifying, the ultimate faux pas that brings life’s scrapbooking evening to a hasty, embarrassed close. It is non-returnable, non-deductible, non-refundable, non-negotiable. And, more appalling, it makes you all spotty and fat, and then it makes you stringy.
Fallen media tycoon Conrad Black was convicted on Friday of mail fraud and concealing documents from an official proceeding, but a jury acquitted him of wire fraud, racketeering and several other counts. Black had been accused of swindling shareholders out of millions of dollars.
The main beneficiaries of economic transformation have been white capitalists who remain the Induna (chief) while the black middle class are given jobs in areas such as human resources, Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.
Allegations that German vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath is practising as a doctor in South Africa are a ”lie”, his lawyers said on Friday. A lawyer from the firm representing Rath, Zolile Gajana, said in a statement issued on Friday he wanted to respond to ”defamatory statements” made by the Democratic Alliance (DA) about Rath.
A Nigerian three-year-old boy has been released by his kidnappers one day after he was snatched on his way to school in the lawless Niger Delta, the boy’s father said on Friday. The kidnappers had demanded 10-million naira ( 600) for the child, relatives of the toddler said earlier.
The Sudanese government has resumed bombing civilian targets in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur, the United States special envoy for Darfur said on Friday. ”After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur,” Andrew Natsios said.
A pedestrian was cut in half when a car, allegedly travelling over 200km/h, hit him on the N8 near Kimberley in the Northern Cape, paramedics said on Friday. ”One half of the body was found inside the car that hit him, and the other half was lying in the bushes some distance away,” said ER24 spokesperson Ben Johnson.
The United Nations refugee agency warned on Friday of a humanitarian disaster looming in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where more than 160Â 000 people have fled fighting and atrocities this year. Despite successful polls last year that chose Joseph Kabila as DRC’s first democratically elected president in more than 40 years, fears were growing of a return to war in North Kivu.
Springbok captain Johann Muller did well to keep his calm on Friday in the face of some fairly stinging questions from the New Zealand press, who are anticipating a big win against the Boks in the Tri-Nations on Saturday. Muller was asked first if he thought he would concede a point for every preceding Bok captain — 52.
Authorities in Zimbabwe announced the arrest of hundreds more retailers and executives as part of an ongoing price crackdown on Friday as it emerged the head of the central bank had warned against the blitz. Among the latest arrests were four police officers accused of looting from shops.