On a national tour ahead of the floor-crossing window for councillors, Inkatha Freedom Party national chairperson Ziba Jiyane is stressing its ”centre-right” position and its standpoint on family values. He also criticised the appointment of women with wealthy husbands in jobs above breadwinners.
At least 74 people were killed and 376 wounded in a mortar attack at a mosque and shooting on demonstrators loyal to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Kufa, the Iraqi Health Ministry said. Officials were unable to distinguish between those who died in the double mortar bombing and the shooting.
Six Armenian air crew members accused of helping to plot to oust Equatorial Guinea’s long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema told a court in Malabo on Thursday that they had nothing to do with the alleged plot. They said they were until recently unaware on what charges they were being held.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=121156">Verdict expected in Zim 70 trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121128">Thatcher was ready to flee SA</a>
A 31-year-old American man was in a Berlin jail cell on Thursday after allegedly running up 000 in bills at luxury hotels in the German capital by claiming he was a visiting dignitary or bank executive. The man reportedly told police when as they clamped handcuffs on him: ”Oh well, it was good while it lasted.”
A teenage Nigerian transvestite and seller of love potions who lived undetected for seven years among the married women of his conservative Islamic community has been caught and now faces jail. Abubakar Hamza said this week that he disguised himself as a girl and ran away from his home in a farming village of Ajingi aged only 12.
The gates of Najaf’s Imam Ali Shrine were forced open on Thursday by a sea of weeping and chanting Shi’ite Muslims, ending a siege of the shrine that had lasted for days and weeks of fighting with United States forces. Yet as the camp of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr went into talks, the military stand-off appeared far from over.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121182">Kufa attacks kill 74, injures hundreds</a>
The working group for the black economic empowerment charter on information and communications technology (ICT) has released its fourth and last working draft, six months ahead of its planned implementation. The charter proposes that all ICT companies in the country should be 45% to 50% charter-compliant by February 2006.
With less than two months to go before the October 11 presidential election in Cameroon, intrigues and accusations have become the order of the day for the country’s political parties. It has also dampened hopes that the opposition will be able to unite behind a single candidate who is capable of defeating the incumbent head of state.
The minister of communications has announced that the licence to provide public switched telecommunications services — the second national operator (SNO) — will be granted on September 17. WIP Investments Nine and Two Telecom Consortium will each hold 24,5% of a new company, SepCo, which will hold 51% of the equity share capital of the SNO.
A Zimbabwe magistrate is expected to hand down verdicts on Friday when the trial resumes of 70 suspected mercenaries held on charges of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. The men, who include Briton Simon Mann, are accused of being at the heart of a conspiracy that allegedly includes Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher was ready to flee SA