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.
Asia’s standing as a reputable footballing continent will be on the line at the World Cup, and AFC president Mohammed bin Hammam on Wednesday rallied regional teams to stand up and be counted. Five Asian Football Confederation teams will be in action — Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, with plenty at stake.
A Bulgarian engineer arrested in Libya in 1999 with five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, now on retrial for ”knowingly” injecting Libyan children with HIV/Aids-contaminated blood, said on Wednesday he saw the six tortured in detention.
Making their third appearance in the World Cup finals this summer, Iran will be desperate to please their passionate supporters back home and the large Germany-based expatriate population by reaching the knockout rounds for the first time.
A cholera epidemic in war-devastated Angola has claimed 1 246 lives with more than 35 000 people ill with the disease, the World Health Organisation announced on Tuesday. Cholera, a highly infectious waterborne disease that causes severe diarrhoea, is present in large swathes of Angola.