Ruling-party legislators in Zimbabwe are pushing constitutional amendments critics say will strengthen President Robert Mugabe. A Bill before Parliament will establish a 40-seat Senate, strip land owners of all rights of appeal if their property is seized and allow the government to deny its critics passports, lawyers say.
Two top United Nations officials based in war-ravaged Côte d’Ivoire Tuesday solidly backed South African President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation after talks in Pretoria, and warned that any group trying to disrupt presidential polls set for October could face sanctions.
Fines imposed on teachers who helped Mpumalanga matric pupils to cheat are ”absurdly” low and not a deterrent, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday. ”Instead, it will make it clear to all teachers that the consequences of helping children to cheat are negligible,” DA education spokesperson Helen Zille said.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will call for Jacob Zuma to be reinstated as deputy president of South Africa, Cosatu said on Tuesday. Its central committee also resolved to ask President Thabo Mbeki to ensure the withdrawal of the corruption charges against Zuma.
A burglar who broke into an office in Portugal last week, making off with a portable safe that contained just €10 (about R79), returned over the weekend to leave a note apologising for the theft, the Lusa news agency reported on Sunday. The envelope with the note was slipped into the mailbox of the office.
About 1 000 pupils — somewhat short of the 100 000 promised by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) — marched through central Cape Town on Tuesday to protest violence at schools. The march went off without incident, despite an earlier police warning to shopkeepers and vendors.
Lions at a safari park in the north of England are prowling after Smart cars, in the apparent belief that the boxy little two-seat European city cars are worthy prey. Visitors to Knowsley Safari Park in Smart cars have discovered that the lions are paying them particular interest.
A torrent of expletives greeted the man accused of being the Station Strangler when he arrived at the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday for an inquest into the deaths of three boys. Norman Afzal Simons, then a 27-year-old teacher, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for only one killing.
Wits University has been embroiled in a race and transformation row since the appointment of a ‘white American male’ as the dean of the humanities faculty. The Mail & Guardian spoke to the protagonists to get to the bottom of the matter, Wendy Orr, director of the transformation equity unit, and Wits university vice-chancellor Loyiso Nongxa.
The Pafuri-Banyini pan in South Africa’s north-eastern Kruger National Park teems with game. Elephant bulls amble among clumps of marula trees and impala leap gracefully across the grassland, where buffalo graze. Located in the triangle between the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers where South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet, the pan is more than an idyllic corner of the Kruger park.