Hopes by Zimbabwe’s only private daily to resume operations have been shattered after the High Court dismissed its application to have equipment seized by police returned. Judge Tendai Uchena dismissed the application but gave no reason for his decision.
At least one Liberian rebel fighter has been killed after a convoy escorting a rebel leader came under attack in an eastern district of the capital, Monrovia, eyewitnesses said. The area is home to many supporters of former president Charles Taylor, who was forced to leave office in August.
Conservative Party leader Ferdi Hartzenberg prefers not to dwell on the demise of his party two decades after it burst on to the political scene of apartheid South Africa with gusto. Over the weekend, the party joined forces with the Freedom Front and the Afrikaner Unity Movement to become the FF+.
An FBI agent has testified that the key plotters behind the September 11 2001 attacks had a test run criss-crossing the United States a few days before the suicide plane bombings. The agent testified at the trial in Germany of a Moroccan charged with helping the plotters.
One of Europe’s most significant terrorism trials since September 11 ended in Belgium yesterday when a disciple of Osama bin Laden was jailed for 10 years for plotting a suicide bomb attack on a US military base.
Their crimes were small: One man stole a goat, another a cow, another two bicycles. Each had a hand chopped off by order of Islamic courts. Nigerian Muslims overwhelmingly voice support for the severe penalties meted out by Islamic law, which authorities started adopting in the predominantly Muslim north in 1999.
Three years ago, Hong Suk-Chon was banished from television after he revealed he was gay. This week, the 32-year-old entertainer will reappear on a television soap with three top South Korean actors, playing an openly gay designer, in a sign that South Korea is slowly opening up to homosexuality.
It was a disgrace that four out of every 1 000 South Africans were in jail, delegates to a Nicro symposium on rehabilitation of offenders were told on Wednesday. Khanya Mpuang, from the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders said offender reintegration was vital to reducing crime in South Africa.
President Thabo Mbeki has accepted Nigeria’s decision not to invite Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to this year’s Commonwealth summit. Reports that Mbeki had insisted on Mugabe’s presence at the summit in Abuja were unfounded, spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
United Nations peacekeepers were due on Wednesday to take over from west African soldiers policing a ceasefire between rebels and the government in Liberia. The UN Security Council voted last month to deploy a peacekeeping force in Liberia, which is struggling to emerge from 14 years of almost uninterrupted war.