Rumours that a witch has been visiting homes in parts of Delhi and is behind several deaths are creating a scare in the Indian capital, it was reported on Friday. So strong are the rumours in Sagarpur and adjoining areas of outer Delhi that a woman ringing a doorbell and asking for an onion runs the risk of being lynched.
Santam Risk Finance, a wholly-owned subsidiary of short-term insurance group Santam, on Friday announced that it has concluded a deal with Kagiso Treasury Services — partly owned by Kagiso Trust Investments — to sell a third of the company to Kagiso. As an integral part of the transaction, Santam has acquired the Nova Group.
The Israeli nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, is facing another term in prison after he was charged on Thursday with breaching a gag order imposed on his release from an 18-year sentence last April. Israeli prosecutors laid 22 charges against Vanunu at a Jerusalem magistrate’s court for allegedly exposing nuclear secrets in interviews with the foreign press.
More than half of all Ethiopian children are stunted, according to a government report on the state of the country’s health released on Thursday. One in 10 children are described as ”wasted”, and just under half as underweight due to poor diet and malnutrition, said the report issued by Ethiopia’s health ministry.
Somalia’s transitional leaders met in Nairobi on Friday in a bid to restore order to a heated parliamentary debate over a controversial peacekeeping mission to their anarchic country that degenerated into a bloody brawl. A spokesperson said President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had called for political dialogue and harmony.
The McCartney sisters emerged from a meeting with United States President George Bush on Thursday claiming to have his ”100% support” for their quest to bring their brother’s killers to justice. The meeting, at the St Patrick’s Day reception, lasted only a few minutes and the family decided not to hand over a dossier on Robert McCartney’s murder outside a Belfast bar in January as they had planned.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is planning to cut 1 500 jobs in news and programmes in a second wave of staff cuts, according to reports on Friday. The corporation’s governors are believed to have approved the cuts, expected to lead to savings of around 200-million pounds (-million).
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>The Independent Democrats has withdrawn from the multiparty South African parliamentary observer mission to monitor the March 31 election in Zimbabwe. In a statement released by MP Vincent Gore, ID member of the team, he said his party believes the "entire observer mission is a farce and a waste of taxpayers’ money".
![]()
Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court has thrown out a plea by a group representing more than three million expatriates demanding the right to vote in the March 31 parliamentary elections, a state-run daily reported on Friday. There are an estimated 3,5-million Zimbabweans living abroad.
Sexuality is about creativity and self-expression, and alternative sexualities should be celebrated, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Thursday. ”You should love who you are,” Tutu said in a film-clip message at the opening of the yearly Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Rosebank, Johannesburg.