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/ 9 December 2005
High-risk offenders in prisons will have their privileges curbed over the festive season to prevent possible escape attempts, says Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour. Many offenders did all in their power to escape from incarceration, apparently in pursuit of further criminal activities over this time.
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/ 9 December 2005
The wife of a passenger shot dead after apparently claiming he was carrying a bomb on a plane desperately tried to tell air marshals her husband was mentally ill and had not taken his medication before they opened fire, killing him. ”She was chasing after him,” Alan Tirpak, another passenger on board, told CNN.
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/ 9 December 2005
Visitors to the Abu Aishe family in the heart of the biblical and bitterly-disputed city of Hebron either require an army escort to the front of the steel mesh cage protecting the three-storey home or risk assault by a barrage of stones, rotting food and shouts of ”Death to Arabs” from the neighbours.
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/ 9 December 2005
South Africa’s foreign affairs department is ”quite optimistic” of a breakthrough in negotiations with Equatorial Guinea for the release of two South African crewmen being held there against their will. ”Our director-general has emphasised the need to bring them back home as soon as possible,” said a foreign affairs spokesperson.
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/ 9 December 2005
South Africa’s tour woes worsened on Friday when spinner Nicky Boje injured his hand during the one-day festival match against a Western Australian Chairman’s XI. Boje was fielding during the limited-overs game at Perth’s Lilac Hill ground when he split the webbing on his right hand.
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/ 9 December 2005
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has called on his country’s citizens to ”celebrate” the return of their land at a ruling party conference. Addressing members of his ruling party’s central committee in the small southern Zimbabwe town of Esigodini, Mugabe said the country needed to boost harvests.
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/ 9 December 2005
South Africa is hoping that rich countries will move away from vague commitments to "precise figures" and deadlines for opening up markets to poorer nations, said its lead negotiator at next week’s WTO talks. Speaking ahead of the key World Trade Organisation meeting opening in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Xavier Carim also singled out the European Union for criticism, saying its stance on agriculture was holding back progress on a new trade deal.
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/ 9 December 2005
Cape Town will soon get its first eco-suburb, with 600 homes, showcasing sustainable living — from its own on-site sewage treatment facility to environmentally friendly construction methods. Oude Molen, an 18ha site earmarked by the Western Cape government for the R80-million eco-development project, is already a platform for "alternative" living.
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/ 9 December 2005
The Brazilian government, in the person of Don Alhambra Goebbels-Von Ribbentrop, Prefect of Amazonia and Archbishop of Ipanema, was adamant that the past year’s inferno had merely been catastrophic, and not, as the environmental lobby claimed, apocalyptic.
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/ 9 December 2005
The African National Congress in Mpumalanga appears to have finally shown controversial Ehlanzeni, Nelspruit, mayor Jeri Ngomane the door. ANC sources said Ngomane, dubbed the "Romeo mayor" because of his numerous wives and girlfriends, was found guilty on three out of four corruption charges following allegations published in the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.