Up to 90 people are missing and presumed drowned after a Nigerian river ferry sank in floodwaters near where a bridge was washed away last week, officials and witnesses said on Tuesday. The overcrowded boat capsized on Monday as it carried traders across the Lamurde river near Jalingo, the capital of Taraba state.
Food security experts in Malawi are keeping a close watch on maize prices in local markets as the country braces itself for another year of chronic food shortages. Humanitarian groups estimate that up to 4,6-million Malawians could face hunger this year after a dramatic drop in maize production.
Telecoms group Telkom has announced the appointment of Transnet group executive Leapeetswe (Papi) Molotsane as its new chief executive officer. Molotsane, whose appointment is effective from September 1, replaces current CEO Sizwe Nxasana.
KwaZulu-Natal’s public prosecutions director Shamila Batohi is working closely with police investigating the recent klebsiella outbreak that killed 22 babies at Mahatma Gandhi hospital in Phoenix. Batohi said: ”Once investigations are complete, I will take a decision on whether to prosecute or not.”
An unsuccessful businessman who stole 48 pieces of women’s underwear, and was caught while nicking a red G-string, was fined 2 000 Singapore dollars ( 212), news reports said on Wednesday. A court heard how Cheng Chee Kam (48) was caught red-handed when he took the G-string hanging out to dry outside a ground floor flat.
South Africa could be spending up to R200-million a year on treating people with serious abdominal gunshot wounds, researchers say in the latest SA Medical Journal. The researchers made the estimate on an extrapolation of a study of wounds at the GF Jooste state hospital on the violence-wracked Cape Flats.
British Airways resumed hundreds of flights at one of the world’s busiest airports, while pleading for continued patience from thousands of passengers stranded by a ground-crew walkout. The airline said 420 out of its 500 scheduled flights were taking off on Saturday from London’s Heathrow airport.
A computer worm targeting corporate networks with the Windows 2000 operating system arrived less than a week after Microsoft warned of the security flaw. As experts predicted, the Windows hole proved a tempting target for rogue programmers, who quickly developed more effective variants on a worm that surfaced over the weekend.
Three car bombs exploded just minutes apart at a busy Baghdad bus station and a nearby hospital during morning rush hour on Wednesday, ripping through buses and killing at least 43 people. Iraqi authorities said the bombings were aimed at terrorising people and triggering a collapse of the government.
Two thieves who tried to rob two elderly women in the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda, thinking they were easy prey, got more than they bargained for when the elder of the two victims, aged 93, valiantly defended herself in an unusual fashion, a press report said on Wednesday.