Police raided church halls in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo on Wednesday, rounding up people who had been sheltering there since their homes were destroyed in a so-called urban renewal drive, a human rights lawyer said on Thursday.
Condoms are inventions by mzungus (whites) and should therefore be banned, a Kenyan MP said on Thursday. Ramadhan Kajembe, MP for the Changamwe district, said in Parliament that not only are condoms ”mzungu things” but they are also painful to put on.
Thousands of South African Airways (SAA) employees will participate in a nationwide strike starting on Friday, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) said on Thursday. A Satawu spokesperson said the union will pursue every avenue and make every effort to engage with SAA.
President Thabo Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo has resigned, a statement issued by the Presidency confirmed on Thursday afternoon. Khumalo has served as the president’s spokesperson for five years. He will step down at the end of July to take up a senior executive post in the private sector.
Three London subway stations were evacuated on Thursday following a number of unspecified ”incidents”, police said, as witnesses reported panic and screaming in the underground system. Scotland Yard said emergency services responded to an ”incident” on a bus in east London.
The South African government needs to take a ”tough love” approach to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s outrageous and unprecedented appeal for a R6,5-billion loan, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Thursday.
Downgraded to a tropical storm, former hurricane Emily was weakening quickly as it moved inland over north-eastern Mexico on Thursday with flood-threatening rains, after it walloped the coast with 200kph winds. Pounding rains drenched Tamaulipas state and south Texas, where tornadoes damaged several homes.
The brother and sister of the wife of slain Free State official Noby Ngombane appeared in the Bloemfontein District Court on Thursday in connection with his murder. Ngombane, who was gunned down at his home, was the head of the Free State government’s policy-monitoring and evaluation unit in the premier’s office.
Kenyan security forces shot and killed 18 cattle raiders from neighbouring Uganda after the rustlers raided a village in northern Kenya, slaying one person, police said on Thursday. Raiders from the Karamojong tribe of Uganda attacked cattle herders from the Turkana of Kenya on Wednesday in the village of Lokiriama, about 735km north of Nairobi.
It often takes more than brains to get a frontline job in Hong Kong, according to a new survey that found nearly half of all companies are also looking for a full head of hair. Forty-three percent of the 113 employers polled said they would not hire people with hair-loss for customer service jobs.