Zanzibar will soon privatise its clove industry in a bid to revive what was once the Indian Ocean Islands’ main foreign exchange earner, the archipelago’s finance minister said on Thursday. Cloves were once the main foreign exchange earner on the so called ”spice islands”, but the industry collapsed in the 1980’s.
The most important haul of Viking treasure unearthed in Britain in more than 150 years was announced on Thursday by the British Museum. Father and son metal-detecting duo David and Andrew Whelan discovered 617 silver coins, a gilt silver vessel and a gold arm-ring near Harrogate in Yorkshire, northern England — former Viking territory.
Two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 33 people in Pakistan on Thursday as a militant backlash intensified following the army’s storming of radical mosque in Islamabad earlier this month. A wave of bomb attacks since a siege and assault on the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, complex, a militant stronghold in the capital, has swept across Pakistan.
Potchefstroom will pay a reward to anybody positively identifying people who vandalise traffic signs or street-name signs, the municipality said on Thursday. Municipal spokesperson Kaizer Mohau said the reward was 10% of the value of the property, with a minimum of R50 and a maximum of R500.
The Lebanese army shelled al-Qaeda-inspired militants cornered in small parts of a Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday and security sources said two more soldiers were killed in the fighting. They said one soldier was killed on Wednesday and the body of another was pulled from rubble in Nahr al-Bared camp, raising the army toll to 111 dead.
Zimbabwean police summoned a leader of the country’s main union organisation to answer charges on Thursday that he called for President Robert Mugabe’s overthrow in a May Day speech, the movement said. A spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions confirmed secretary general Wellington Chibebe had gone to Harare’s main police station.
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.
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.
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.