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/ 17 January 2005
A woman who used the date-rape drug Rohypnol to drug wealthy men and rob them of their expensive clothes and accessories was jailed for five years on Monday. Selina Hakki is believed to be the first woman to be found guilty of using Rohypnol to drug men in Britain.
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/ 17 January 2005
Dressed in a seamless white robe, Algerian pilgrim Tayyeb Bouguettaya circled the Kaaba several times on Monday with a prayer booklet in one hand and a cellphone in the other, reciting religious mantras in unison with his wife a continent away. Modern technology has changed the way Muslims experience the hajj pilgrimage.
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/ 17 January 2005
Firearms handed in to police in three provinces in the first two weeks of a three-month amnesty period were mostly legal weapons. On Monday, about 560 firearms had been already been handed over to police in Gauteng, who also received more than 21 000 rounds of ammunition, of which most were handed in voluntarily.
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/ 17 January 2005
The ruling African National Congress’s Mninwa Johannes Mahlangu has been elected unopposed as the new chairperson of the second chamber of South Africa’s Parliament, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). Mahlangu was first elected to the National Assembly in 1994 but became deputy chairperson of the NCOP in 2002.
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/ 17 January 2005
The United States wants to resolve the issue of the debt burden that is crippling the growth of many African countries, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said on Monday. He was addressing journalists in Cape Town, where he is attending a Commission for Africa meeting. Progress in this area, he said, is possible in the next few months.
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/ 17 January 2005
A five-wicket haul by England’s Matthew Hoggard after lunch on the fifth and final day of the fourth Castle Lager/MTN Test at the Wanderers on Monday has put England in sight of victory. At tea, South Africa were 98 for five. They needed 217 more runs to win, but more importantly, needed to survive another 38 overs to force a draw.
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/ 17 January 2005
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Monday reacted to cleric Allan Boesak’s presidential pardon by focusing on the 394 names it has also submitted for pardon. It was announced over the weekend that Boesak had been granted a presidential pardon, which expunged his criminal record of fraud and theft.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=178042">Boesak’s pardon raises hackles</a>
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/ 17 January 2005
South African businessmen aim to create a ”beachhead of influence” in the Middle East during a three day black economic empowerment visit to Israel next week. An initiative of South Africa’s Ambassador to Israel Fumanekile Gqiba and supported by the South African Israel Chamber of Commerce, the visit followed that of an Israeli delegation to South Africa last year.
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/ 17 January 2005
Voting for candidates to stand for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party in parliamentary elections in March was continuing for a third day on Monday amid reports of rampant violence, fraud and confusion. Thousands of Zanu-PF grassroots supporters began queuing early on Saturday.
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/ 17 January 2005
Legal teams on both sides of the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial are back at work, although the case only resumes in court on January 31. A confident Shaik said compared to the tsunami, conflict in Iraq and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, ”mine is not a problem, just a slight irritation … like a mosquito around your ankle”.