As Zimbabwe implodes economically, an increasing number of its citizens are applying for visas to head south. There were already an estimated two million Zimbabweans in South Africa illegally, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad told a media briefing at Parliament on Wednesday.
The bail of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni was extended by the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday, pending a petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal to appeal against his four-year jail sentence. His R10Â 000 bail was, however, increased to R30Â 000. He was given until the end of the day to pay the additional bail.
Freelance writer Yang Tianshui has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in China on subversion charges, in one of the country’s most severe media crackdowns since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989. Yang was convicted after being accused of posting articles on foreign websites, receiving money from abroad and helping a would-be opposition party.
A visit by South African President Thabo Mbeki to Palestine is being discussed with that nation’s president as well as the new Hamas government, but any visit will be judged against its contribution to peace in the area, said South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad, on Wednesday.
A 25cm fossil meteorite has been discovered in the 145-million-year-old Morokweng crater, about 766m beneath the Kalahari Desert in the North West province of South Africa, the University of the Witwatersrand announced on Wednesday. Morokweng is home to the first complete fossil stony meteorites found in an impact melt.
The chairperson of the South African Trade and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) in the Western Cape has apologised for the violent rampage through Cape Town by striking guards on Tuesday. Jerome Fortune said Satawu members would probably lay charges of assault against police.
After two down days, the JSE bounced into the black on Wednesday boosted by a recovery in precious metals prices. Stronger Asian markets and a stabilisation in the rand further helped the local bourse. At 11.53am, the all share and all share industrial indices were up 0,74% and 0,77% respectively.
Faced with starvation after six years of poor harvests, Zimbabweans are resorting to centuries-old traditions of ”forced marriages” for survival. The practice involves a father giving away his usually under-age daughter (without her consent) to a richer man in return for food and other economic support.
More than 60 journalists in Zimbabwe who were touring areas affected by the government’s controversial Operation Murambatsvina — a slum-clearance programme that left thousands homeless — were on Tuesday denied entry to check on conditions at the Hopley farm settlement for Murambatsvina victims in Harare.
Thousands of Somalis on Wednesday demanded an end to deadly violence that has rocked their lawless capital, denouncing a United States-backed warlord alliance that has been battling Islamic militia. More than 2 000 Mogadishu residents rallied to call for a full halt to the bloodiest fighting the city has seen in 15 years.