About 200 white commercial farmers have asked Zimbabwean authorities to restore their seized land, a senior member of a farmers’ union said on Friday. ”I submitted close to 200 applications. Some farmers submitted their applications individually,” said Roy Gifford, vice-president of the white-dominated Commercial Farmers’ Union.
The family of former Zimbabwean opposition MP Roy Bennett has confirmed that he has applied for asylum in South Africa, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Friday. The Witness earlier reported that Bennett had claimed his life was in danger from state security forces.
African National Congress cadres should guard against the selfless legacy of anti-apartheid activists like the late Ellen Khuzwayo being overrun by self-interest, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Khuzwayo’s legacy should inspire ANC members to work selflessly towards the organisation’s strengthening
On a November Tuesday, just more than two-and-a-half years from now, Americans will vote for a new president, watched anxiously by the rest of the world. It is a long way off. There are congressional elections to get through first, later this year, and a new war could have started. But the campaign is already under way.
A ”thorough” investigation into reports of rat-tailed maggots in three provinces has found no evidence of contaminated drinking water, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Friday. Neither health officials nor anyone else saw rat-tailed maggots coming from drinking water out of a tap.
A concerted effort and not political point-scoring is needed to win the fight against HIV and Aids, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said on Friday. The biggest challenge facing the church, said the SACC’s Reverend Teboho Klaas, is to support all efforts aimed at fighting the pandemic.
Twenty-seven people were injured, nine seriously, after two minibus taxis collided near Boksburg on Friday afternoon, Ekurhuleni metro police said. Two people were killed and three others seriously injured in an accident on the N12 in Ekurhuleni, near Benoni, on Saturday morning, a metro police media-liaison officer said.
Nepal’s King Gyanendra, who has pledged to ”return sovereignty to the people” after massive and violent street protests, has seen his god-like status badly shaken. Now the question remains whether the wily king can remain on the throne or even whether the monarchy as an institution will survive in the desperately poor nation.
One of three earthquakes that hit Russia’s remote north-eastern Kamchatka peninsula almost completely destroyed three small villages, local authorities were quoted as saying early on Saturday by Interfax news agency. Up to 180 people were evacuated on Saturday from the villages of Korf and Tilichiki.
Nepal’s King Gyanendra vowed to give up power but not the throne on Friday in a last-ditch attempt to placate protesters and win over political parties who want to end the 237-year-old rule of the Shah dynasty. Within minutes, the largest political party, the Nepali Congress, dismissed the king’s gambit.