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/ 5 September 2006
One of South Africa’s foremost young jazz musicians, saxophonist Moses Khumalo (27), was found dead in his house in Honeydew, west of Johannesburg, on Monday evening, West Rand police said. Khumalo’s girlfriend, who last saw the musician on Friday, went to check on him and found his body hanging in the house, police said.
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/ 5 September 2006
An agreement has been reached between the Russian Federation and South Africa to supply the latter with nuclear fuel up to 2010, visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin told a media conference at Tuynhuys on Tuesday. A Russian company is planning to invest $1-billion in production of manganese in this country.
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/ 5 September 2006
Two jailbreaks and a series of arrests in recent months suggest that sympathy for al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia still runs strong despite a government crackdown, analysts said this week. The authorities in the world’s biggest oil exporter say they have seized nearly 80 al-Qaeda members or sympathisers from around the country over the last three months.
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/ 5 September 2006
Burundi’s second vice-president resigned on Tuesday, blaming official corruption and human rights abuses for derailing promising progress toward peace in the Central African nation. Alice Nzomukunda told reporters in the capital she could not ”remain indifferent” to troubling developments in the country.
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/ 5 September 2006
Japan is gripped by expectation that the looming crisis over succession to the Chrysanthemum throne could end on Tuesday if the baby to be delivered by caesarean section to Princess Kiko turns out to be a boy. The wife of the second in line to the throne is due to give birth at a private hospital in Tokyo after doctors decided several weeks ago to plan a caesarean after spotting a minor complication.
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/ 5 September 2006
An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamist militant to eight years in prison on Tuesday for aiding the alleged mastermind of the suicide bombings that killed 20 people in Bali last year. Abdul Aziz (30) ”committed gross crimes against humanity”, according to the presiding judge, Gede Wirya.
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/ 5 September 2006
Lebanese troops moved on Tuesday into a town wrecked by Israel’s war with Hezbollah, as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hoped for word on the lifting of an Israeli blockade on Lebanon within two days. Troops in armoured carriers, trucks and jeeps rolled into the shattered Shi’ite Muslim town of Bint Jbeil that was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting.
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/ 5 September 2006
Nominal growth of 13,6% year-on-year in house prices was recorded in August 2006, compared with a revised growth rate of 14% in July, the latest Absa house-price index shows. This brought the average price of a house in the middle segment of the market to about R816 000 in August.
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/ 5 September 2006
Renowned Bafana coach-in-waiting Carlos Alberto Parreira is in South Africa ”to polish soccer diamonds” so that South Africa can assemble a successful team for the 2010 World Cup. ”But,” warned the former Brazil World Cup coach in a no-nonsense statement to the local media on Tuesday, ”if the diamonds remain underground … they are of no value.”
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/ 5 September 2006
Anarchic Somalia lurched towards long-elusive stability on Tuesday after an interim accord between powerful Islamists and the weak government, but plans for regional peacekeepers appeared in tatters. As Islamist and government leaders savoured their less than 24-hour-old deal, East African leaders hastily cancelled a summit in Kenya called to discuss the proposed force.