The United Nations said on Friday it is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse by a unit of peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire and confined the soldiers in question to base. A United Nations statement did not say which country the soldiers were from or how many were under investigation.
Twelve African migrants who were rescued after their boat capsized in the Atlantic arrived on Spain’s Canary Islands on Friday as hopes faded that roughly 50 others who are still missing will be found alive. The 36 other survivors of the accident were brought by a rescue ship into Puerto de los Christianos on Tenerife late on Thursday.
Bill Clinton charmed crowds in Southern Africa this week, mingling with barefooted children and joking with Malawians — showing the diplomatic skills he could put to use if his wife becomes America’s first woman president. Hillary Clinton has said she would make her husband a roaming ambassador, using his talent to repair America’s tattered image abroad.
Justine Robbeson, African record holder in the women’s javelin, won South Africa’s first athletics gold medal at the All Africa Games on Friday with a throw of 58,09m. Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the world number one 800m athlete of 2006, was pipped at the post in a thrilling 800m final by an 18-year old Sudanese athlete, Abu Bakr Kaki.
Manchester United will tour South Africa in 2008 after admitting that Africa and Asia, rather than the United States, are the regions where their fan-base is most fanatical. The Premiership champions, currently in Asia on a four-leg pre-season tour, were due to land in Macau on Saturday after wowing fans in Tokyo and Seoul.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union on Friday threatened to go on strike if Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride was not suspended. ”We are going to say to the municipality, suspend Robert McBride or municipal service delivery is going to be hampered,” said Samwu branch secretary Koena Ramotlou.
The pictures are as grainy and blurry as you might expect from a tiny camera hidden in the ceiling of what Zimbabwe’s government press is calling ”the archbishop’s love nest”. But there is little doubt that the man perched on the edge of the bed is Pius Ncube, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo and furious opponent of Robert Mugabe.
At what point does the columnist stop being a critic and become merely critical? It is an upsetting moment, when the writer who likes to believe that he is creating small, diverting illuminations on the endlessly reproduced pages of our national manuscript looks up from his doodling, lays down his gold leaf and purple ink, and discovers that he is merely drawing unremarkable cartoons of mediocre grumpiness.
The Mail & Guardian newspaper on Friday denied disregarding an interdict barring it from publishing the details of a draft internal report into alleged abuse of power at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. ”We completely deny it … we have a paper trail of every step taken to comply with the order,” said M&G editor Ferial Haffajee.
Diamond beneficiation, whereby stones mined in South Africa are also cut and polished in the country, will be enforced, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Friday. She said was seriously concerned about De Beers’ director Jonathan Oppenheimer’s comments on the costs of beneficiation earlier this week.