After 14 weeks and more than 130 witnesses, the jury in the Michael Jackson trial finally retired on Friday to decide whether the singer was a naive victim of con artists or a predator who groomed a child for sexual acts. The 46-year-old pop singer is to wait for the verdict at his Neverland ranch, 45 minutes from the court.
A French appeal court has found the editor-in-chief of Le Monde and the authors of an opinion piece in the paper guilty of ”racial defamation” against Israel and the Jewish people. The ruling was greeted with applause by Jewish groups, but some alarm by media lawyers.
The awarding of a Rugby Super 14 franchise to the Southern and Eastern Cape must be ”non negotiable” when the SA Rugby Union’s President’s Council meets to discuss the matter on Wednesday. This is the view of the SEC bidding franchise, comprising the Border, Eastern Province and South Western Districts Rugby Unions.
Jerusalem’s city council has ordered one of the largest mass demolitions in the city’s recent history, with plans to raze the homes of about 1 000 Palestinians in a neighbourhood claimed by Jewish settlers. The council says about 90 buildings served with demolition orders were built illegally over the last three decades on a site of religious and archaeological value.
Lobby group Jubilee SA has accused Johannesburg police of harassing its demonstrators outside the Barclays head office in Sandton on Friday. ”Constables, brandishing automatic weapons, jumped out the van and threatened to arrest every demonstrator,” said Tristen Taylor, spokesperson for the organisation.
The US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy in an attempt to halt the rising attrition rate in an army under growing strain as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu said on Friday that 1,6-million houses have been built since 1994, but admitted the housing backlog is still enormous and her department can only do so much. She said poor communication with the public is the likely cause of protests about the pace of housing delivery.
Zimbabwe’s central bank governor has admitted authorising a bank transfer by the country’s former finance minister who is on trial for corruption. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who is spearheading an anti-corruption drive, was speaking at the trial of Chris Kuruneri, accused of siphoning scarce foreign currency out of the country.
Namibia’s Herero community is pressing Germany to offer reparations for its extermination campaign against the tribe during colonial rule as its leaders opened a new history museum funded by Berlin. The museum has been criticised by the Herero chief as merely a ”public relations exercise”.
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The Asset Forfeiture Unit was on Friday granted an order to seize assets worth R30-million belonging to convicted Durban businessman Shabir Shaik, spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said.