A woman is killed every six hours in South Africa by her intimate partner. This is one of the key findings from the first national study of female homicides in South Africa. A worrying finding of the research was the low conviction rate of the known perpetrators. Just over a third, (35%) were convicted of the crime.
As Venus tracks slowly across the face of the Sun on Tuesday, it may be fitting to remember one of the most unlucky astronomers in the history of the science. The Frenchman Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisiere risked death in the 18th century to travel half way across the world to observe a pair of transits of Venus.
Moammar Gaddafi expressed regret on Sunday that former United States President Ronald Reagan died without ever standing trial for 1986 air strikes he ordered that killed the Libyan leader’s adopted daughter and 36 other people. Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air raid in response to a discotheque bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gaddafi that killed two US soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people.
Guy-Andre Kieffer is stirring up trouble again. A journalist with a nose for news that powerful people prefer buried, he is troubling three governments, a multi-million- pound industry and a nation on the cusp of war. Thanks to the rumpled reporter, criminal investigations are under way into the secretive regime which runs Côte d’Ivoire and exports almost half the world’s cocoa, raw ingredient for chocolate.
Alleged mercenaries accused of planning a coup in an oil-rich African state also worked under contract for the British government providing security in Iraq, raising fears about the way highly sensitive security work is awarded, The Observer has learnt.
Islamic militants who killed 22 people in a shooting spree in Saudi Arabia a week ago have posted a 3 000-word account of the operation on the internet. The account gives astonishing details of the attack, describing how the killers hunted down their victims, then slept and prayed after decapitating Westerners.
Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was ”morning again in America,” died on Saturday after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, a family friend said. He was 93.
Reagan’s ‘ugly crime’
Leaders pay homage to Reagan
The future of the New National Party (NNP) lies in strengthening its ties with the African National Congress (ANC), the party announced following a federal council meeting in Centurion on Saturday. The NNP and ANC have agreed to ”strengthen and deepen the relationship of cooperation between the two parties”, NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters.
Iraq’s new prime minister gave his first televised address to the nation on Friday and insisted that the premature withdrawal of multinational forces from the country ”would be a major disaster”. The warning from Ayad Allawi came as the number of American soldiers killed in combat since last year’s invasion reached 600.
A claustrophobic aircraft passenger consumed liquor with a tranquilliser before causing mayhem on an South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, the Bellville Magistrate’s Court heard on Friday. Defence counsel Charles Simon told the court his client, Colin Barnett (29) of Milnerton near Cape Town, consumed the liquor and tranquilliser because of his fear of flying.