Some of London’s key landmarks and top hotels are to go dark for an hour on Thursday evening as the British capital does its bit for the fight against global warming and turns off its lights. The Houses of Parliament, luxury hotels like the Ritz, and key businesses will take part in the ”Lights Out” campaign.
Tens of thousands of people flocked to Glastonbury for the world’s biggest green-field arts and music festival on Thursday — and with rain falling and more forecast to come, mud lovers might not be disappointed. The festival is notorious for its torrential rain after three ”washout” years in 1997, 1998 and 2005.
Nigerian troops killed 12 suspected militants and freed an unspecified number of hostages in a dawn raid on an Italian-operated oil facility in the Niger Delta on Thursday, the army said. Italian oil giant Eni had said 16 Nigerian oil workers and 11 soldiers were being held hostage at the Ogbainbiri flow station since Sunday, but the army said they found only 11 oil workers.
Taliep Petersen’s wife, Najwa, received electric shock therapy before his murder last year and could relapse into psychosis if she remained in custody, the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday. She also made an apparent suicide attempt some years ago, her psychiatrist said.
The tax-evasion case against embattled mining magnate Roger Kebble was postponed at the Johannesburg Regional Court on Thursday. The case was heard in the chambers of a magistrate Carstens because of the continuing public-service strike. Carstens postponed the case to July 16.
Irreparable harm had been caused by dismissing health workers in Khayelitsha clinics during the public-service strike, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) argued in the Cape High Court on Thursday. Last week, the TAC and seven Khayelitsha residents lodged an application to reverse the health workers’ dismissal.
Dalene du Preez, spokesperson for the Proudly South African brand, on Thursday said <i>Business Day</i> newspaper had got it "half wrong" when it reported that the brand was disowned by its chief sponsor, the Department of Trade and Industry. She said there has been a recent turnaround in the strategy around the brand.
Former captain Bob Skinstad and hard-working loose forward Danie Rossouw have been drafted into the Springbok team for Saturday’s Tri-Nations Test with New Zealand in Durban. Skinstad and Rossouw will take over from the injured Pierre Spies and Juan Smith at number eight and blindside flanker respectively.
Somali authorities have announced plans to impose a curfew on the capital, Mogadishu, where at least five people were killed on Thursday in the latest violence to undermine government attempts to restore law. Two police officers died when hand grenades were lobbed at officers patrolling Mogadishu’s Bakara market, witnesses said.
A severe shortage of liquefied petroleum gas has crippled the gas trade in the Western Cape, the Cape Argus reported on Thursday. Its website quoted retailers as saying the gas supply had run out and they were not sure when the situation would be resolved. ”There is now absolutely no product coming in for the next week or so,” said one gas supplier.