Thousands of Shi’ites, many waving Islam’s holy book over their heads, protested the United States-led occupation in Iraq on Thursday, setting off clashes in at least one southern city as they answered a call by a radical cleric to paint Israeli and American flags on the ground and stomp on them.
The hearing of the Richtersveld community’s multibillion-rand land claim has been postponed to October 25 — and could continue into 2006. Land Claims Court Judge Antonie Gildenhuys, who has been hearing evidence in Cape Town over the past four weeks, said on Friday that seven weeks have been set aside for the October session.
A husband told police he slept in the same bed with the body of his wife for a year after she died — because he ”did not want to part with her” even after death. Frankfurt police on Friday said the man said his wife had sent him out on a shopping errand last May and that he returned to find her dead.
The South African rand weakened to its worst level since October 15 last year in afternoon trade on Friday on the back of a break in the euro below $1,26. Market analysts expected the local unit to continue to lose ground going into the new week. The rand weakened to R6,5581 as the euro came under pressure.
In a victory for Michael Jackson’s defence, jurors in his child-molestation case were allowed to see a video tour of the singer’s Neverland ranch that a prosecutor condemned as propaganda. Jurors saw idyllic scenes of amusement-park rides, cheerful workers, zoo animals, blooming flowers and statues of boys and girls at play.
Several Iraqi Sunni Muslim clerics renewed their call during Friday sermons in Baghdad for a three-day prayer strike in mosques, an unprecedented movement to protest against anti-Sunni assassinations. ”It is a peaceful protest against heinous crimes,” Sheikh Ahmed Abdel Ghafur al-Samarrai said in his Friday sermon.
President Thabo Mbeki has questioned the figures produced by official data capturer Statistics South Africa on unemployment figures and says it is "quite unlikely" that its figures are correct — otherwise people would have seen millions of people in the streets looking for work. There are even millionaires who are deemed "unemployed", he argued on Friday.
Authorities in the Congo have quarantined two north-western districts hit by the deadly Ebola virus to ensure the highly contagious disease does not spread, officials said on Friday. The two districts — Etoumbi, where eight deaths were recorded, and Mbomo, where a ninth person died — were sealed off on Wednesday.
The Kruger National Park (KNP) has fired four of its employees for beating to death and slaughtering at least six impala in February, a park spokesperson said on Friday. ”The intense cruelty of the incident horrified us,” KNP executive director Bandile Mkhize said in a statement on Friday.
World press chiefs are gathering in Nairobi, Kenya, for a conference next week amid growing criticism of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki’s government for alleged deterioriation in media freedom. The Vienna-based International Press Institute kicks off its annual three-day general assembly in Nairobi on Sunday.