Niger’s government on Friday squashed any notion that food would be distributed free of charge to the country’s citizens teetering on the edge of a food crisis that could affect about three million people. The reaction followed Thursday’s rally by several thousand people demanding free food stocks.
Scattered violence forced the early closure of more than 250 polling stations in Burundi on Friday, threatening to mar local elections critical to the country’s peace process after more than a decade of civil war. Burundian and United Nations officials stressed the violence was limited to areas in and around the capital.
Prosecutors portrayed Michael Jackson as a hard-drinking, porn-collecting paedophile to ”dirty up” the pop star because they could not prove their case that he molested a child, Jackson’s lawyer said in closing arguments. Defence attorney Thomas Mesereau Jnr was to conclude his closing argument on Friday.
A Malaysian family was horrified to discover their maid had spiked their drinking water with soiled diapers and sanitary pads as a magic charm to ensure they were nice to her, reports said on Friday. The 26-year-old Indonesian maid was caught on a spy camera that the suspicious family set up at their home in Kuala Lumpur.
Hospital bosses in Britain were meeting on Friday to discuss a controversial move to ban Bibles from patients’ bedsides after they were decreed not only insensitive to other religions but also a health risk. Gideons International, the organisation that distributes Bibles to hospitals, has condemned the mooted move as "outrageous".
A bone found on a British beach has sparked renewed interest in one of the country’s most curious myths — that a monkey washed ashore during the Napoleonic Wars was executed by suspicious locals for being a French spy. The discovery has intrigued locals, given the town’s curious folklore.
A chemical fire that left billowing clouds of smoke hanging over Brakpan North was extinguished at noon on Friday, 14 hours after it started. At least three residents were hospitalised for irritation to their mucous membranes — eyes, noses and mouths — caused by the fumes, said an emergency services spokesperson.
Japan launched a nationwide probe on Friday into thousands of mysterious, sharp-edged pieces of metal in different sizes found jutting out of roadside guardrails across the country. Japanese media have been debating whether the shards were planted by pranksters or if they could all have been formed by car fragments in crashes.
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South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has told business people in Lusaka, Zambia, that his conscience ”is clear”, as he has not committed any crimes. Meanwhile, Shaik’s conviction does not necessarily signal the closure of his Nkobi group of companies.
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I had been playing with a Blackberry and promised to come back to you once I had done a bit more rigorous testing on it. I have. In the meantime, I have also had the chance to try out the Nokia 9500 — a new-generation smart phone that oozes a stylish charm and screams "Open me, open me" when you look at it.