British Prime Minister Tony Blair ensured that Africa was firmly on the agenda of the international community during his time in office, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The two leaders met at the Union Buildings in Pretoria as part of Blair’s farewell tour to Africa.
The national public-service strike was largely peaceful on Friday, but got off to a violent start in Cape Town, police said. Police used stun grenades to disperse protesters outside Tygerberg Hospital after about 500 people had blocked both the entrance and the road outside the facility, said Inspector Bernadine Steyn.
African oil will be central to French energy major Total’s efforts to hit its output targets this decade, its head of exploration and production told Reuters. Total is set to increase investment in the region, mainly in Nigeria and Angola, and to a lesser extent in Congo, Yves-Louis Darricarrere said.
The political crisis in Zimbabwe needs to be resolved by fellow African governments, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Friday after talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki. He said that Britain supported Mbeki’s role to mediate between veteran Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Former South Africa captain Bobby Skinstad will return to international rugby on Saturday after four years out, including a spell in the lower leagues of the English game. Skinstad was called into the Springbok squad on Friday for the second Test against England in Pretoria because number eight Danie Rossouw has flu.
An Ekurhuleni metro police officer was robbed at gunpoint by three teenaged boys in Germiston on Friday. South African Police Service spokesperson Captain Steady Nawa said the 38-year-old officer was robbed at daybreak on Friday while walking to work. ”One of the boys was armed with a pistol and another with a knife,” he said.
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Free State provincial minister for safety and security Playfair Morule faces a culpable-homicide charge in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, the Volksblad newspaper reported on Friday. The case was postponed to August 24 for a possible trial, after Morule (47) appeared in court on Thursday.
Fighting erupted again on Friday between troops besieging a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon and Islamist militants holed up inside, as the stand-off entered its 13th day. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the fire fight at Nahr al-Bared, located on the Mediterranean coast 90km north of the capital, Beirut.
Kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said he was in good health and being treated well in a video released on Friday, the first since militants abducted him in the Palestinian enclave over 11 weeks ago. It was the clearest evidence he was alive following his March 12 abduction.