Somalia’s political stand-off may erupt into a region-wide conflict involving al-Qaeda unless its fragile government can bring Islamists into its ranks, a think-tank said on Friday. Foreign states, particularly Ethiopia and Eritrea, must stop supporting the rival factions or risk inflaming the situation, the International Crisis Group said in a report.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Friday accused the African National Congress of deliberate sabotage of the parliamentary process through the passage of the new anti-mercenary Bill, resulting in President Thabo Mbeki’s Africa policy being undermined.
Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney believes he has become the number-one target of over-zealous referees. The England forward faces a three-match ban after being red-carded for elbowing a Porto player in a pre-season game in Amsterdam last week. The incident comes just weeks after his controversial World Cup dismissal.
The National House of Traditional Leaders says it is planning public hearings on circumcision in a bid to counter the continuing deaths resulting from the ritual. Chief Dikgale Solomon, head of a four-man task team, said on Friday it was intended to hold the hearings before the December circumcision season.
The United Kingdom named 19 people on Friday suspected of a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners and ordered their assets frozen, a day after police said they had foiled ”murder on an unimaginable scale”. United States officials said suspected suicide bombers were just days from simultaneous attacks on up to 10 aircraft flying from Britain to the US.
Czech police detained a journalist who tried to test out airport security at a regional airport on Friday, police spokesperson Roman Pittner said. "In the current situation we judge this as stupid," Pittner said, referring to the foiled terrorist attempt to bomb aircraft leaving London’s Heathrow airport.
The Beijing city government has turned down an undertaker’s application to send human ashes into space, state media said Friday. A funeral home’s proposal to charge 100Â 000 yuan ($12Â 500) each for sending two clients’ ashes into space was turned down on the grounds that there was no law regulating space burials, Xinhua news agency reported.
The JSE was firmly in the black at midday on Friday, in line with most European markets which shrugged off Thursday’s foiled airline terror attacks. By 12.13pm, the all-share index was up 0,87%, with resources 1,09% firmer, the gold-mining index 1,2% better and the platinum-mining index up 0,34%.
Israeli air raids killed 11 people in north Lebanon on Friday as the United States and France strove to clinch a draft United Nations resolution to end the month-old war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. The bombing of a bridge near the border with Syria wounded 18 people, hospital staff said.
It is admirable that writers and filmmakers are not being held back from modern nightmares on grounds of taste or modesty, writes Natasha Walter.