A group of about 20 human rights groups led by Amnesty International is asking South African President Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders to put pressure on Zimbabwe over its human rights record. ”We are urging African states to take a more public stand in resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe,” said Amnesty’s spokesperson in South Africa, Samkelo Mokhine.
Another blow to press freedom in Zim
Listed South African entertainment and media group Johnnic Communications on Thursday announced a 108% improvement in attributable earnings to R187-million for the year ended June 30. Basic headline earnings per share were 13% higher at 170 cents from 151 cents before.
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has told the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast food chain to stay out of Tibet over alleged cruelty to animals, an animal rights group said on Thursday. The Dalai Lama has written a letter to KFC parent company Yum! Brands chief executive David Novak imploring him to abandon plans to expand KFC restaurants into Tibet.
The Bush administration’s thinking about the use of torture in the war on terror was on display on Wednesday after the White House released a file of documents on the treatment of detainees. The memos offer a glimpse of the decision-making process at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the department of justice and the White House.
The eight British sailors and marines detained in Iran are expected to be freed on Thursday, the British Foreign Office said after talks on their release were suspended late on Wednesday. British diplomats from the embassy in Tehran have also visited the men, who are being held in the town of Bandar Mahshahr.
An urgent inquiry was launched in Cyprus on Wednesday night after an undercover police operation exposed a group of up to 100 tourists, including Britons, taking part in what was described a mass orgy aboard a cruise ship off the island. The scenes, shown on local TV and described as ”debauched”, were broadcast after being caught on camera in the police sting.
Young South African women are being given false job offers to lure them into prostitution in Macau, a former Portuguese colony now under Chinese control, says the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). IOM official Jonathan Martens told a conference in Benoni that women were promised employment, luxury accommodation, and payment of between $10 000 and $20 000.
Michael Melvill, the pilot of the first manned private trip to the edge of space this week, has told how he feared he would not return from the landmark mission.
The South African-born Melvill told the New York Times, that SpaceShipOne lurched to the left and suffered a key control system failure that left him feeling ”deathly afraid”.
A nurse at a Polokwane hospital was dismissed and her two colleagues were suspended following an incident where two babies were swapped in April, the Limpopo health department said on Wednesday. The baby swapping discovery was made by one of the mothers when she went home and found two name tags on a baby.
A software engineer working for America Online was on Wednesday night charged with stealing the internet service provider’s entire subscriber list and selling it to spammers, the senders of unsolicited junk e-mails. Jason Smathers (24) was arrested on conspiracy charges at his home in West Virginia, close to AOL’s headquarters, where he had worked since 1999.