White farmers can be assured that their views on land reform will be taken into account, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Friday. ”We can assure them. They must be frank, fearless and open about their views,” said Director General of Agriculture Masiphula Mbongwa at the land summit in Johannesburg.
Pakistan is doing ”more than its share” in the fight against terrorism, the country’s minister of foreign affairs said on Friday. Also, President Pervez Musharraf on Friday said all the estimated 1 400 foreign nationals studying in the country’s madrassas will have to leave the Islamic seminaries.
While opposition parties have questioned Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report on the Oilgate scandal and pledged to take up the issue with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the African National Congress says it accepts his findings. Mushwana said he found no evidence of wrongdoing in the scandal.
The film version of <i>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> struggles to live up to Douglas Adams’s masterpiece, writes Peter Bradshaw.
Artists shouldn’t look to politicians and government officials to take corrective action when they become aware of corrupt or illegal activities, writes Mike van Graan.
A suicide bomber has blown himself up outside an army recruitment centre in the northern Iraqi town of Rabia, near the Syrian border, killing 25 people and wounding 35, police said. The victims were young men waiting to sign up to join the army, police General Said al-Juburi said.
It will be business as usual on Monday for thousands of municipal workers who embarked on a three-day strike that ended on Friday. South African Municipal Workers’ Union Johannesburg branch chairperson Essawu Mbele told workers to go home and report to work on Monday, but added the fight is not over.
London’s metropolitan police said on Friday they have arrested three men during two raids in the west of the capital, while refusing to confirm that among them were suspected bombers who targeted the city last week. On Friday, armed police launched two raids in west London and shut down one of the city’s main stations.
No evidence of wrongdoing has been found in the so-called Oilgate scandal, involving a payment by black empowerment company Imvume to the African National Congress, Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana said on Friday. Mushwana was speaking in Pretoria at the release of the report into the Oilgate scandal.
Back-to-back refinery fires in Texas and Louisiana sent crude futures back above a barrel on Friday as the unplanned outages fanned fears that production may not be able to meet demand in coming months. An explosion and fire was reported at British Petroleum’s Texas City plant on Thursday night.