Former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s defence team has some reading to do before his war-crimes trial begins — 32Â 000 pages of documents and witness statements compiled by prosecutors. That gives them plenty to do while officials work out where the trial will be held and where the accused warlord might be jailed if convicted.
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German football chiefs have called for the nation to protest against neo-Nazi marches during this month’s World Cup finals and show the world that a unified Germany has no time for xenophobia. A number of neo-Nazi organisations are expected to use the World Cup, beginning in just seven days time, as a platform to voice their opinions.
A decision on whether or not to establish a ”Gateway to Antarctica” centre in Cape Town will be taken at the end of the year, the Department of Science and Technology said on Friday. Tenders had been received for a six-month pre-feasibility study, and the service provider picked to compile this report would be chosen at the end of June.
As more security-guard-strike-related train violence flared in different provinces, black security employers agreed to sit down for talks with the unions over the weekend. Black employers also plan to meet the South African National Security Employers’ Association on Friday to convince it to join the negotiations on Saturday and Sunday under the auspices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
Eskom reports that electricity demand in the Western Cape continues to grow as winter settles in, but that the measures put in place in terms of its recovery plan are proving successful in maintaining stable supply of power to the region. "Koeberg unit one is currently operating at 80% of its capacity," the power utility said.
A group of eight Westerners — six British, one American and one Canadian — were kidnapped on Friday while working on an offshore oil rig in Nigeria, the platform’s owners said. A group of people climbed on board the Bulford Dolphin facility off Nigeria’s southern coast at about 4am local time and seized the employees.
It’s a powerful moment in Michael Moore’s anti-war film Fahrenheit 9/11. A young American soldier who lost his arms in a helicopter explosion is describing his injuries. The soldier, Sergeant Peter Damon, says he feels like he is being ”crushed in a vice”. Painkillers, he continues, ”take a lot of the edge off of it”.
The Bush administration, heavily influence by the Christian right, is blocking key proposals for a new United Nations package to combat HIV/Aids worldwide over the next five years because of its opposition to the distribution of condoms and needle exchanges and references to prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals.
Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters ruthlessly exposed the gulf in talent in women’s tennis on Friday when both stormed effortlessly into the French Open third round. Hingis, the 12th seed and playing at Roland Garros for the first time in five years, crushed Zuzana Ondraskova of the Czech Republic, ranked a lowly 114 in the world, 6-1, 6-3 in just 49 minutes.
Thousands of angry Somali Muslims on Friday denounced the United States and a US-backed warlord alliance fighting Islamic militia in the lawless capital, Mogadishu, vowing to destroy their opponents. Chanting anti-US slogans and comparing President George Bush to a Nazi, about 5Â 000 Muslims gathered in southern Mogadishu.