The people behind the hoax e-mails that sought to implicate influential figures in the African National Congress in a plot against Jacob Zuma would be charged ”very soon”, national police commissioner Jackie Selebi said on Saturday. Selebi’s statement comes after a decision by President Thabo Mbeki earlier this week, to fire the head of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masetlha.
Unions have rejected a revised Telkom offer on profit-sharing and service awards, the company said on Friday. The fresh negotiations had not been well received by the Communication Workers’ Union and Solidarity, said Telkom personnel chief Charlotte Mokoena.
”There’s over 40 walls in the average American home,” a business manager for the artist Thomas Kinkade once said, ”and Thom says our job is to figure out how to populate every single wall in every single home and every single business throughout the world with his paintings.” Kinkade’s luridly idyllic landscapes, full of quaint cottages and glowing firelight, already hang in an estimated one in 20 US homes.
Russia funnelled intelligence on United States troop movements in Iraq to Saddam Hussein during the early days of the war, according to documents contained in a Pentagon report released on Friday night. Documents apparently from Saddam’s regime, seized by the Americans, described how Russia collected crucial plans from ”inside the American central command”.
Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus, is to be banned from travelling to the European Union and United States after riot police in Minsk arrested hundreds of opposition activists protesting against the results of last weekend’s elections.
The doping hearings for two Indian weightlifters were adjourned until Sunday, leaving the arbitration court little time to deliver its finding before the Commonwealth Games’ closing ceremonies. Directors have assembled a cast of Australian artists and performers to bring the curtain down on Melbourne 2006 and hand over to New Delhi organisers for the 2010 event.
A strong earthquake killed one person and injured at least 160 in central Japan on Sunday, demolishing houses, buckling roads, triggering landslides and cutting off water supplies. More than 1 300 people evacuated to shelters after 44 houses collapsed and about 200 others, mostly wooden with heavy tile roofs, were seriously damaged by the 6,9 magnitude earthquake.
South Africa were in a good position at close of play on the first day of the second Castle Lager Test at Kingsmead on Friday, when they snatched three late wickets to have Australia on 228-5 at stumps. Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat first. South Africa struck an early blow in the second over, when Matthew Hayden was safely caught by AB de Villiers.
Protesting security guards must prepare to embark on a national strike on April 3, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) told thousands of marchers in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon. ”For now I can say … prepare to come back here on April 3,” said Satawu’s security division national director Jackson Simons.
A permanent ceasefire by separatist group ETA came into effect on Friday as a poll found the vast majority of Spaniards want their government to engage in talks with the armed Basque movement. The Opina poll released by the private Cadena Ser radio station said around 68% consider the ceasefire ”good news for Spanish society”.