Tucked away at the end of City Press‘s Sunday scoop on Cyril Ramaphosa entering the succession race, the line ”Additional reporting by Wikipedia” tweaked the Oom’s interest. A visit to Cyril’s entry turned up a curious final paragraph: ”Many people in South Africa, both prominent voices and ordinary citizens, view Ramaphosa as the next president of the country.”
The irony is almost beyond belief. Since the capture of an Israeli soldier, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a large-scale military operation, what Israel calls ”Summer Rain”. Because Israel bombed the power plant, and the area needs electricity to pump water, most of Gaza now has almost no access to drinking water.
Good evening. Welcome to the SABC3 Intimate 7 o’clock News Banquet. My name’s Craven Lily and I’m your waitron so let me get your juices running by telling you about this evening’s mind-bending specials. As you probably know, at SABC3 Intimate News Banquets we always start with two or three of our main courses, otherwise known as the “Mbeki Lick-Regulars”.
Former MP Charles Redcliffe was on Friday slapped with a R70 000 fine or five years’ imprisonment for defrauding the parliamentary travel scheme. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said in a statement that Redcliffe was given a further five-year jail term suspended conditionally for five years by Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees are fleeing their homes in Lebanon as a result of Israeli military actions. Mounting deaths and injuries, more than half of them of children, are disproportionately affecting one side in this unequal war. The entire infrastructure of a country recently recovering from decades of conflict has been destroyed once again.
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Israeli warplanes and artillery hammered Lebanon again on Thursday as the Beirut government said up to 600 people may have been killed in Israel’s 16-day-old campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel’s inner Cabinet chose to pursue a strategy of air strikes and limited ground incursions, rather than a full-scale invasion of Lebanon.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa announced new measures on Thursday to raise state revenues in the face of rampant inflation, including extra levies on fuel and the construction of toll gates on all major highways. Taxes on gasoline and diesel will increase and eight new toll gates will be added, he said.
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance has released a list of social-grant fraudsters in the public service — although Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya has asked that the information supplied to it remain confidential. The names of over 1 728 public servants were provided by the minister to the DA, which MP Mike Waters released on Thursday.
A Spoornet engineer was questioned in the Paarl Regional Court on Thursday about a Metrorail passenger coach that smashed into a goods train near Muldersvlei three years ago, killing 10 people. Hennie Klopper, a mechanical engineer, was giving evidence in the culpable-homicide trial of the train driver.