Jet fuel has become a major component in a local illicit brew drunk by many urban poor in Nairobi, a local newspaper reported Thursday. The Daily Nation newspaper quoted a brewer and seller of the illegal changaa liquor in a Nairobi slum, saying airport workers sell jet fuel to a well established net of customers who sell it on to brewers in the city.
Kenya is pushing ahead with plans for an East African political federation with neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda that would create a common currency and Constitution for the three nations by 2010. Kibaki, Tanzanian President Yoweri Museveni and Ugandan President Benjamin Mkapa are due to meet at a special summit, probably in Kenya, on May 20.
A group of 42 asylum seekers have arrived in this Southern African country from Somalia after a two month trek covering more than 2 200km with little food, water or rest, officials said on Wednesday. The men said they were forced to continue their walk after being refused refugee status in Tanzania and Mozambique.
An Eskom employee died and another was seriously injured after the collapse of the conductor structure of a transmission line they were busy upgrading in Vanderbijlpark on Wednesday. An Eskom spokesperson said three Eskom employees were sitting on the conductor when the structure collapsed.
IBM has announced a prototype anti-spam technology that it claims is eliminating 99% of incoming spam in lab tests. The software, FairUCE (Fair use of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail), looks at the identity of the e-mail sender, as opposed to the more common technique of filtering spam by analysing the content of e-mails.
An academic has come forward with what appears to be the first Mandela art fraud.
Indonesian scientists have placed 11 volcanoes under close watch after a series of powerful quakes increased the chances of a major eruption. Tens of thousands spent a third night in temporary camps after fleeing the slopes of Mount Talang on Sumatra island, where hot ash has been raining down since Monday, more volcanoes began rumbling into life.
A pair of car bombs exploded near government offices in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, killing 18 and wounding three dozen, as insurgent attacks against the nation’s nascent security forces left at least eight others dead. On Wednesday, an American was shown at gunpoint on a videotape aired by al-Jazeera television.
Microsoft launched a scaled-back version of its Windows operating system in Brazil on Wednesday, hoping to get more people using computers in Latin America’s largest country while cutting down on rampant software piracy. Brazil becomes the first country in the western hemisphere to get the low-cost XP Starter Edition.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was weaker in noon trade on Thursday — having traded at its worst level since February earlier in the session — despite a softer rand. Negative global sentiment and poor performances by heavyweight dual-listed stocks offshore were weighing on the local bourse, dealers said.