The US treasury is investigating filmmaker Michael Moore for taking sick 9/11 rescuers to Cuba for part of his documentary, <i>Sicko</i>, reports Charlotte Higgins in Cannes.
President Robert Mugabe has urged Zimbabwe’s security forces to remain on high alert to thwart attempts to topple his government by the opposition and his Western foes, official media reported on Friday. Mugabe told a ceremony for graduating police officers that threatened strikes were part of a plot by the opposition to sow political turmoil.
South African civil servants launched a national strike on Friday, causing turmoil in some hospitals and emptying classrooms as unions demanded a hefty wage hike from the government. The Congress of South African Trade Unions, which had called on 700Â 000 public workers to strike, said the early turnout was a success.
Publishing group hopes to digitise about a quarter of a million local titles, writes Tumi Makgetla
Lisa Johnston finds some of Sue Pam-Grant’s latest works to be darkly humourous
South Africa should be compensating public servants for the quality of the work they do rather than granting an across-the-board increase — as demanded by striking trade unionists — official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille argued on Friday.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is to produce a report by the end of the month on Zimbabwe’s economic and political crises, reports said on Friday. ”By the end of June, we must have a report ready for the relevant authorities,” the state-run Herald quoted SADC secretary general Tomaz Augusto Salamao as saying.
Gunmen kidnapped three people, including Asian expatriates, from the residential compound of chemical company Indorama in oil-rich southern Nigeria on Friday, a senior police officer said. ”There was an attack on the Indorama residential compound. Three people were taken,” Rivers State Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said.
The retail price of all grades of petrol will rise by 23 cents per litre from Wednesday June 6, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The latest changes bring the retail price for a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng to R7,24 a litre and to R7 a litre at the coast — the highest to date.
The trials and tribulations of Marat Safin might have detained Leo Tolstoy for only a couple of chapters, but in tennis terms it has been a long-running story that has brought both rapture and intense frustration over the past decade — the tale of a huge talent, capable of hitting undreamed-of heights, but one that may ultimately be looked back on as wasted.