”Whites who really accept the new South Africa are with the NNP. An ironic development after 1994 is that the NNP has become the real rainbow party, while the party of liberalism has taken over the role of conservative complainers.” New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk fields 10 pre-election curve-balls.

More than 5 000 South Africans will kill themselves before the end of the year if current trends continue, the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag) said ahead of its second annual Teen Suicide Prevention Week on Sunday. The group added that suicide statistics included children as young as 10.

Rebel fighters armed with assault rifles, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades massacred more than 190 refugees at a camp in northern Uganda on Saturday, it emerged on Sunday. Some of the refugees were gunned down while they fled, and others were burned alive when the rebels torched their grass huts.

The president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, recently found ground glass in his food: possibly an attempt to kill him. He told state television during a special birthday interview that a presidential cook had been questioned about the incident.

A suicide bomber murdered eight people on a rush hour bus in Jerusalem on Sunday, underlining the bitter arguments around the opening of an international court of justice hearing on the legality of Israel’s vast ”anti-terror fence”.

Black economic empowerment (BEE) ownership of South African services giant Bidvest has increased to approximately 35%, the group said on Monday. Black empowerment consortium Dinatla Investment Holdings acquired 15% of Bidvest in November last year and BEE ownership of Bidvest has now increased to approximately 35%, Bidvest Chairman Brian Joffe said on Monday.