An Indonesian Muslim teacher who named his son after the terrorist Osama bin Laden has been convicted of masterminding last year’s Bali nightclub bombings and sentenced to death by firing squad. Judges said he had played a key leadership role in the bombing last year on October 12, which killed 202 people.
A German transport plane that crashed into the Mediterranean sea during World War II has been brought to the surface by Greek armed forces. A human skeleton was found in the plane that lay 40m deep about 500m off the Aegean island of Leros, a Greek air force spokesperson said.
Bank of Botswana governor Linah Mohohlo has been voted central bank governor of the year for sub-Saharan Africa, an international financial magazine, Euromoney, has announced. Mohohlo received the award after a poll by investors, bankers and representatives of financial and capital markets.
President Thabo Mbeki has warned those ”peddling false stories” about various members of the African National Congress having been apartheid spies that they would face the wrath of the masses. He said during pre-1994 negotiations it had been agreed ”that all of us had the responsibility to let bygones be bygones”.
The United Nations’s aid agencies will resume operations in Liberia on Friday after suspending their work following a fresh outbreak of violence that left at least 13 dead. ”We were forced to suspend our humanitarian mission and restrict our movements because of the unrest,” a spokesperson said in Geneva.
The African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance continued their traditional squabbling on Friday — turning their attention this time to South Africa’s latest Nobel Prize-winner, author JM Coetzee. The DA insists the ANC owes the author an apology for its 2000 attack on his award-winning novel <i>Disgrace</i>.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=21400">JM Coetzee celebrates in private</a>
The United Democratic Movement has called for hearings into spy allegations against National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka not to be conducted in camera. ”The investigation ought to be conducted publicly … so that claims made by those wearing balaclavas could be avoided at all cost.”
The food crisis in Zimbabwe is worsening, with a majority of the country’s districts having exhausted their food stocks, according to a United Nations report. An estimated 5,5-million Zimbabweans will require emergency food aid by early next year, out of a regional total of 6,5-million.
The New National Party has expressed concern after the Constitutional Court remarked that it appeared the Limpopo government had not complied with court orders. The court ordered Limpopo’s provincial minister of education to report back to it regarding her department’s alleged non-compliance with certain court orders.
The retrenchment of about 3 000 workers at the Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) gold mine in the North West is continuing as planned, company spokesperson Ilja Graulich said. About 155 workers have been offered voluntary retrenchment packages and another 129 have been retired.