Fighters loyal to an Islamic militia and their secular rivals manoeuvred heavily armed trucks around city streets and reinforced their positions in Somalia’s capital early on Friday, following a battle that residents said was the most widespread fighting in 14 years.
An upsurge in violence in Afghanistan over the past week was the result of pressure on the Taliban from al-Qaeda and other supporters, a provincial governor said, citing Afghan intelligence. This included al-Qaeda and other militants based in neighbouring Pakistan, said Asadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar province.
Hamas agrees with 90 % of a document compiled by jailed faction leaders and which Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas wants the Islamists to adopt, members said on Friday. Adnan Asfur, a Hamas leader in the occupied West Bank, told cross-party crisis talks that his party approved "90%" of the document.
South Africa has decided against granting asylum to white Zimbabwean opposition politician Roy Bennett, who fled his country two months ago amid fears for his life, his lawyers said on Friday. Bennett applied for asylum in South Africa in March after the police sought to question him over the discovery of an arms cache that security agents claimed was to be used to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government.
The sole surviving attacker of the Beslan school siege of September 2004 was found guilty today of murder, hostage taking and terrorism but was spared the death penalty because of Russia’s current moratorium on executions. The court found Nurpashi Kulayev guilty of taking hostages, causing the deaths of 330 people and inflicting material damage of around ,3-million.
Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper The Times announced on Friday it will launch a United States edition next month as part of a push to make the paper an international brand. The US edition will go on sale on 6 June via subscription and at more than 2 000 retail outlets across New York and New Jersey.
In a rare and frank public attack on the game’s administrators, businessman Tokyo Sexwale has warned that ”football leadership has to go back to the drawing board. The battle is hard for Bafana Bafana; we are battling out there. It is a hard thing that we are going to the World Cup without Bafana Bafana,” the former premier of Gauteng said.
The Mail & Guardian has shown impressive growth in circulation from January to March this year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures released this week. The M&G‘s ABC circulation figure for the period was 42 116 — higher than figures for Business Day and the Sunday Independent.
The possibility of a nationwide taxi strike cannot be ruled out should the Department of Transport fail to comply with taxi owners’ demands over operating permits, a spokesperson said on Friday. South African National Taxi Council members marched to the Union Buildings to hand over a memorandum to the minister of transport.
Inside the walking, talking, living icon called Pele, a 65-year-old man named Edson still breathes and smiles and calls out ”Hello!” Sauntering down the corridor of a hushed Knightsbridge hotel in London, on his way to promote the new autobiography of Pele, the voice of Edson Arantes Do Nascimento is heard first.