Unknown people have plunged parts of six states in the south-east and southern regions of Nigeria into darkness by vandalising electricity power lines, Power and Steel Minister Lyel Imoke said on Wednesday. The damage led to the collapse of five major 330kV towers serving the south-eastern states of Abia, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River.
The South African streetfootball team, which is participating in the first Streetfootball World Cup, to be held during the Soccer World Cup in Berlin in July, is battling to find a local sponsor. Akila Monate, the coach of the team, told the Mail & Guardian Online that finding local sponsorship has been tough.
Human rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday released the first-ever satellite images of the effect of the Zimbabwean government’s controversial Operation Murambatsvina, which left 700Â 000 people homeless last year, according to a United Nations report. The photographs depict the destruction of Porta Farm, a large informal settlement.
Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman on Wednesday ordered toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, out of the courtroom after a row between the two men. It was the second time that Barzan has been expelled since the October 2005 start of the trial against Saddam and seven former associates on charges of crimes against humanity.
The price of petrol could rise by up to 30c a litre next week due to the weaker rand and the high oil price, economists said on Wednesday. ”The unfortunate thing is that the oil price remained around [a barrel] for the whole of May and the rand has fallen,” Absa economist Ridle Markus said.
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The scandal threatening to bring Italian football to its knees is now starting to affect the national team’s World Cup preparations, according to the Italian press on Wednesday. With 41 people and most of Italy’s big clubs being dragged through the mud, the press said a ”morbid atmosphere” has descended over the camp.
At least 17 people were killed and 36 injured when a passenger bus plunged into a deep ravine in northern Ethiopia after skidding off a muddy rural road, police said on Wednesday. The vehicle, which was carrying 63 passengers, swerved off the road running from the town of Essie to Baherder at Kelto, about 520km north-east of the capital, late on Tuesday.
Nine people have been taken in for questioning after a shooting that claimed a man’s life at Port Elizabeth’s New Brighton railway station on Wednesday, police said. Spokesperson Captain Verna Brink said police are seeking to establish whether the shooting is related to the ongoing strike by security guards.
Muslims in Malawi are urging the government to ban the movie The Da Vinci Code for portraying Jesus as a married man who fathered a child, the head of a national association said on Wednesday. ”It is clear that the contents of the film are acts of blasphemy,” said Shareef Mahomed, of the Muslim Association of Malawi.
Pretoria police said on Wednesday it is too early to draw conclusions about the discovery of a number of bodies in Centurion, south of the city, as investigations are still underway. Van Wyk said the police will not disclose the number of bodies recently found.