The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is to broaden an internal probe to include staff members leaking ”incorrect information” to the media on the fate of Deputy President Jacob Zuma. The NPA denied a Mail & Guardian report that it was preparing to charge Zuma following the fraud and corruption conviction of Schabir Shaik.
One person was killed and at least five others seriously injured on Wednesday in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, when an escalator suddenly started moving and they were caught in the machinery, a hospital official said. Six people were in intensive care, a doctor said — including one whose arms were torn off at the shoulder.
The United States on Friday expressed its ”unequivocal” support for embattled Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and said there appears to be no real danger of a coup despite rumours. Arroyo has placed military and police forces on full alert as rumours swirl of a plot against her, fuelled by allegations she rigged last year’s election.
A millionaire British businessman, Friedhelm Eronat, was named on Thursday night as the purchaser of oil rights in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the regime is accused of war crimes and where millions of tribespeople are alleged to have been forced to flee, amid mass rapes or murders.
Margaret Okello was nine months pregnant when soldiers from the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army came into her village outside the Northern Ugandan town of Gulu. They dragged her deep into the bush of the surrounding savannah and cut off her nose, ears and lips.
Burundi’s lone remaining Hutu rebel group on Friday accused the government of repeatedly violating a tentative truce signed last month, amid counter-accusations from Bujumbura. ”Burundi government troops have been repeatedly attacking us since May 17,” said National Liberation Forces spokesperson Pasteur Habimana.
The Jacob Zuma saga has forced President Thabo Mbeki into the zugzwang chess position, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday. ”This is a position in which a player has to move but he can only do so with loss or severe disadvantage,” Leon said. It was still not known by Friday when Mbeki would speak on Zuma’s fate.
I have been sitting in this car park now for 22 hours and 11 minutes. It’s a strange sort of car park: there are few cars in this car park; there are many people. There are trucks in this car park, but they are unusual trucks. These trucks have huge poles sprouting out of their roofs, pointing into the sky.
At least 40 children were killed on Friday when a flash flood struck a primary school in north-eastern China, hospital sources said. "There are at least 40 children who were sent to hospital to be saved and who did not survive," said a doctor at the hospital in Heilongjiang. A local bank worker said there were "at least 50 or 60 dead".
A museum dedicated to children’s author Roald Dahl (1916-1990), featuring chocolate-scented doors, a friendly giant and a crocodile bench, has been opened in Britain. The museum and story centre is in Great Missenden, the village in Buckinghamshire (north-west of London), where Dahl wrote many of his classics.