A judge ordered a bail hearing for suspects accused of trying to topple Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to be held behind closed doors on Friday to protect the identity of the alleged ringleaders. ”This case is a very sensitive one,” High Court Judge Tedius Karwi said, granting a prosecution request to bar the media.
The death-sentence fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie by Iran’s revolutionary leader 18 years ago is still valid and will remain so, a leading cleric said on Friday following Britain’s knighting of the controversial author. ”In Islamic Iran, the revolutionary fatwa issued by Imam Khomeini remains valid …,” Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami said.
Chad’s government and rebel leaders gathered in Tripoli on Friday for Libyan-brokered peace talks aimed at ending an insurgency against President Idriss Deby’s rule. A coalition of Chadian rebels have been fighting a hit-and-run guerrilla war for well over a year against Déby’s forces in eastern Chad.
Britain’s Damien Hirst has been crowned the world’s most expensive living artist at auction, lifting a title held for years by America’s Jasper Johns. It was the high point of a frenetic week of London art auctions that saw records tumbling like ninepins and which is likely to get close to -billion when it ends later on Friday.
Retired South African Press Association (Sapa) sports editor William ”Bill” Mclean (71) died in a Johannesburg clinic on Friday morning after a long illness, his family announced. A veteran news-agency man, Mclean’s career with Sapa spanned more than three decades.
Police officers are not allowed to go on strike, the Johannesburg Labour Court ruled on Friday. Meanwhile, protesters barged through the gates of the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council, in Centurion, ahead of further public-service wage talks between government and union negotiators.
Eleven people were killed in and around the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, during a surge in violence overnight, including two people found beheaded and eight killed in a shootout, police said on Friday. Three people — including the two who were beheaded — were found slain in Banana Hill on the outskirts of Nairobi.
South Africa lacks women in high positions, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has found. A lot still needed to be done to empower women, the PSC said in a report released on Friday. ”Critical in this endeavour is the creation of an enabling environment to ensure that women’s talents and potential are harnessed …,” it said.
Blackburn Rovers are the latest English Premiership side to come under the scrutiny of foreign ownership, press reports said on Friday. The Sun reported that South African billionaire Johann Rupert had teamed up with the owner of NFL team Miami Dolphins to piece together a potential bid for the Lancashire side.
An uneasy calm settled over a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon on Friday after the Lebanese army declared victory in 33 days of fighting against al-Qaeda-inspired militants. The battle for Nahr al-Bared camp in which 172 people were killed was Lebanon’s worst outbreak of internal violence since a 1975 to 1990 civil war.