Residents reported seeing a burning plane crash in northern Mogadishu on Friday. One witness said it was a Ugandan military plane and that it was shot down. ”We saw a burning plane coming down,” said Muse Sheik Osman, who lives in the north of the capital. He said he heard the sound of an anti-aircraft missile being fired shortly before the crash.
R1-billion has been allocated this year to eradicate bucket toilets in established settlements by December, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Friday. ”All bucket systems that exist in formal establishments and townships will be completely removed by December 2007,” said a departmental spokesperson.
A cyclone that swept across Madagascar last week killed at least 69 people and left tens of thousands homeless in the north of the Indian Ocean island, officials said on Friday. Mudslides have buried whole villages, rivers have burst their banks and roads have been cut off since Cyclone Indlala struck on March 15.
Thousands of people fled their homes in Maputo on Friday, fearing fresh explosions from the smoking wreckage of Mozambique’s largest armoury as emergency workers stockpiled bodies and missile shells. Ninety-six people died in the explosions on Thursday evening and about 400 were injured.
Watching users fumble and nearly drop an early version of the FlipStart compact PC practically gave Robin Budd a heart attack. The culprit was the three-key sequence, Control-Alt-Delete, required to log off or reboot a Windows PC. When the shrunken-down laptop goes on sale later this month, early adopters might get a kick out of FlipStart’s solution.
Tackling the future of Freedom Park, on Thursday its CEO, Dr Mongane Wally Serote, denied that there is an inherent contradiction in the park’s mandate. ”The contradiction exists in the nation,” he said in response to recent criticisms from some organisations and individuals that the park is not as all-inclusive as it claims to be.
This year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival features intense gyrations on and off stage, writes Daniel Friedman.
Lynley Donnelly reviews the second collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman titled Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders.
![]()
Jacob Zuma and French arms manufacturer Thint are now waiting for Judge Phillip Levensohn to decide whether to sign a letter asking Mauritius to release documents relating to Zuma’s role in the arms deal. The documents include the 2000 diary of Alain Thetard, former chief executive of Thales International’s South African subsidiary, Thint.
Long-ruling Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday castigated opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as being a stooge of the West and vowed he would never rule the country. ”Tsvangirai, you want to rule this country on behalf of [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair,” Mugabe told hundreds of supporters at his party headquarters.