Three people, including a 13-year-old girl, were injured when a light aircraft crashed in Syferfontein near Lenasia on Thursday, police said. Captain Mbazima Shiburi said the 49-year-old pilot, who had broken both his legs and one arm, was airlifted to Milpark hospital. His condition was serious but stable.
Ten-year-old Molin considers the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital her home. She’s not alone. Research by a Harare-based NGO, Futures International, in May 2004 indicated that at least 12 000 children eke out a living on the country’s highways and byways. They have become part of the decaying infrastructure of Zimbabwe’s towns.
The call has come from the land of the free, the United States, for election observers for the US electoral process this autumn. The US-based human rights group Global Exchange plans to host at least 28 independent, international monitors as part of its Fair Elections initiative. The monitors will apply internationally developed standards of electoral fairness to investigate and report on issues of concern to the US electorate.
The trade-weighted rand on Thursday jumped 2,1% from Wednesday and moved to its best level since October 16 2000, when it was R62,72 and was 24,4% stronger than this year’s worst level of R50,11 reached on January 16. Its level on Thursday at 10.30am was R62,35, beating last year’s best level.
Two years ago, if you had asked Lila Lipscomb what she stood for, she would have referred you to the flag in her garden and her four grown-up children. Her priorities were, in descending order of importance, family, faith, country and a place where all three met, what she might have called ”service”.
Gauteng housing MEC Nomvula Mokonyane lashed out at the illegal occupation of Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses in violence-ridden Diepsloot on Thursday. Residents of the part informal settlement, part housing estate, north-west of Johannesburg, have been protesting this week against their rumoured removal from Diepsloot to Brits, north of Pretoria, on July 14.
Police won’t be fooled
Hundreds of millions of rands in public funds have been wasted as key government development funders lurch from crisis to crisis, stalling the disbursement of crucial money. Committed to finding more creative ways than social grants to fight poverty, the government has put significant funds into development agencies — but the returns have in the main been minimal.
The oil boom in Central and West Africa could result in prosperity or disaster in the region, depending on how wisely the revenues are spent, according to a study released on Wednesday. The report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said the growing oil exports of Nigeria and Angola will significantly enhance the global position of the two countries.
The International Monetary Fund has delayed Zimbabwe’s possible expulsion for unpaid debt, giving the southern African country six months to turn around its economy. Zimbabwe, which has been gripped by severe economic problems for the past six years, was facing possible expulsion as a member of the fund over unpaid debt amounting to about $290-million by February.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118381">AU to suppress Zimbabwe report</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118354">Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror</a>
The remaining soccer referees earmarked for questioning in the mop up phase of the Operation Dribble match-fixing investigation evaded police on Wednesday, spokesperson Senior Superintendent Selby Bokaba said on Thursday. ”They didn’t sleep at home,” said Bokaba. ”We only found their wives.”