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Two reports issued on Wednesday reinforced concern that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party won last week’s parliamentary election through fraud. A report by observers from the United States embassy said there were ”several patterns of irregularities”.
The number of fraudsters who have applied for amnesty regarding social grant embezzlement has swelled to 300 000, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Wednesday. A spokesperson from the Department of Health said ”drastic steps” will be taken against those who do not apply for amnesty.
Cape Town police were monitoring taxis in the city on Thursday following a decision to close some ranks to quell recent violence. Certain ranks were ordered closed on Wednesday, with the South African Broadcasting Corporation reporting that this was related to at least four recent deaths linked to disputes among local taxi organisations.
The desperate shortage of water in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape has reached such chronic proportions that residents sometimes fight one another to get at it. Others, in order to steer clear of the trouble, have resorted to storing up water in containers, and there is even a third option of buying water from self-styled water hawkers.
China’s justice system is being haunted by a ”murdered” woman who has turned up alive and well 11 years after police tortured her husband into confessing to her supposed killing. The sudden reappearance of Zhang Zaiyu has embarrassed law-enforcement authorities and strengthened calls for penal reform.
Angola’s Parliament on Wednesday passed a resolution asking the government of President Eduardo dos Santos for rapid measures to combat the outbreak of the deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus, which has now killed 159 people. It was the first parliamentary move in Angola to fight the untreatable haemorrhagic fever.
The drama that has long beset the Onassis dynasty has taken another turn after reports that Athina Roussel, the family’s sole surviving member, is determined to fight the old men who guard her grandfather’s fortune in Athens. Athina, who is 20, came into a fortune conservatively estimated at £1-billion (R11,54-billion) last year.
It is a five-hour journey through beautiful scenery in the northern foothills of the Himalayas. But when 20 passengers on Thursday morning board two coaches under the snow-capped peaks in Srinagar, India’s state capital in Jammu, and Kashmir, they will be embarking on the world’s most dangerous bus trip.
”How do we get to the end of that queue over there?” asked Patrizia Laudenzi, shielding her eyes with one hand as she peered down the Tiber. ”You’re at the end of the queue, Signora,” the police officer replied. Laudenzi gave him one of those you’re-winding-me-up-aren’t-you kind of smiles. Until she realised he wasn’t.
Three gold mines operated by world number two gold-miner AngloGold Ashanti face the prospect of flooding, if rival DRDGold doesn’t pick up the tab for the pumping of underground water from its Hartebeesfontein and Buffelfontein gold mines, which are currently shut down and in the process of being liquidated.