Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo once had a notice posted at the gate of his farm and presidential retreat: ”No dogs and journalists allowed.” Obasanjo saw it as a joking reference to what he considered unfair criticism from the press. The sign is gone, but tensions between the president and the press linger.
The National Prosecuting Authority on Monday started exhuming remains of eight Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres who were killed in the apartheid era between the years 1984 and 1986 and buried as unidentified paupers at Mmabatho cemetery in the North West province.
Telkom said on Monday there has been no discussions on the sale of the South African telecommunications group. The group said it had taken note of speculative reports in the weekend press that United Kingdom group Vodafone was interested in a takeover bid of the fixed-line operator.
London’s buses and underground trains will remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks for a long time, the city’s transport chiefs said. Those working to protect the British capital’s transport network "have not found the magic formula any more than Madrid, New York, Tel Aviv or Paris", said Tim O’Toole, managing director of London Underground.
More than 30 people were killed on Monday when a metro train derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia in an apparent accident, as pilgrims began gathering ahead of a papal visit, regional officials said. An interior ministry spokesperson said any terrorist link had been "completely ruled out".
Sentech has been given the go-ahead to roll out digital terrestrial television and take South Africa’s TV industry into the digital age. Sentech will play a major role in the 2010 World Cup by ensuring that South Africa’s analogue broadcasting infrastructure is upgraded to a digital-ready terrestrial system.
Four men have been arrested in connection with the rape of two foreign missionaries and the shooting of one of them on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast. Captain Vincent Pandarum said the two women — one from Kenya and the other from the United States — were raped on Friday night as they were walking home on the Old Harding Road near Oslo Beach.
The co-chief executive of the European aerospace group EADS and the head of its Airbus subsidiary paid with their jobs on Sunday for the crisis that has wiped billions of euros off the value of the company. The two companies issued terse statements announcing EADS’s French co-boss Noel Forgeard and Airbus’s head Gustav Humbert, a German, were stepping down.
It seems the African Union (AU) is repeating the ”sad past” of the old Organisation for African Unity, particularly with regard to Zimbabwe and Sudan, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has again outwitted President Thabo Mbeki, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the AU, DA foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Gibson said.
London-listed platinum explorer African Platinum (Afplats) on Monday announced a resource update for its Imbasa and Inkosi properties in South Africa that resulted in a 73% increase in its total mineral resources, when the company’s Leeuwkop property was included, to 92-million ounces.