Staff Reporter

Writer Ronald Roberts threatened at least 25 individuals at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), including the entire board, with criminal and civil action when the corporation refused to apologise to him over a broadcast he objected to, the Cape High Court heard recently.

Zimbabwe’s unofficial foreign exchange is set to plunge to Z$4 000 against the United States dollar by year-end before dipping further to Z$180 000 to the greenback by December 2007 unless there is a drastic shift in economic policy, a leading Harare economist has warned.

The good news is, they are most unlikely to be prosecuted for speeding. Two employees of an ice rink in Boise, Idaho, have been sacked for taking a ride to a local burger drive-thru in a pair of ice resurfacing machines. The Zamboni grooming machines have a top speed of about 8kph.

An indefinite curfew was imposed on Baghdad on Thursday night and its international airport closed after the city was convulsed by the deadliest sectarian violence since the United States led war began in March 2003. Suspected Sunni-Arab militants launched a salvo of five car bombs and two mortar rounds on the densely populated Shia slum of Sadr City.

Struggling state-owned airline South African Airways (SAA) was able to report a profit for its past financial year, but a closer look at the balance sheet shows that, but for a change in accounting policy and a government bail-out, the airline would have made a loss. There has been a renewed focus on its finances since the launch of its low-cost subsidiary Mango.

Heavy flooding in Somalia killed at least seven people overnight, bringing the death toll to 80 from three weeks of torrential rains, witnesses and aid workers said on Thursday. Of the casualties, four were mauled by crocodiles lurking in floodwater in Somalia’s Hiraan region, where the River Shabelle broke its banks and swept through villages, they said.

The clearest government timetable yet for Britain’s withdrawal from Iraq was set out on Wednesday when the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said she was confident Britain could hand control of the south of the country to Iraqi forces in spring.

So much for the first week of democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Supporters of the losing presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba clashed with police and the army outside the Supreme Court in Kinshasa, where judges were deliberating his challenge. The judges were forced to flee the building when it was set alight. There can be no more graphic symbol of a lack of respect for the nascent system than this.

Pupils who were due to sit examinations at their high school in South Africa are suspected of being behind a fire on Wednesday, which burned down the building, police said. Two classrooms in a prefabricated building at Durban’s Star College were burned to the ground, hours before pupils were to have sat matriculation and internal exams.

The bitter relationship between France and Rwanda sank to new depths on Tuesday after a French judge accused the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, of ordering the assassination of the Hutu president that led to the genocide of 800 000 Tutsis in 1994.

The spread of the HIV/Aids pandemic continues unabated, with the number of people infected rising once more in some countries which had been thought to be beating the disease, according to the United Nations. There are now 39,5-million living with HIV infection, according to the annual UNAids report, released ahead of World Aids Day on December 1.

South Africa’s axed deputy president Jacob Zuma has questioned the independence of the judiciary, suggesting that sensationalist media coverage influenced the Supreme Court of Appeal in its ruling against graft-accused businessman Schabir Shaik.

Media24 is diving into the psychology of women – literally. The media group on Tuesday announced the launch of another addition to the women’s magazine category, <i>Psychologies</i>, which will be available on shelves in April 2007.

Jane Duncan, executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute, says there is a trend towards a government-controlled broadcasting industry in South Africa.

Forces loyal to Jean-Pierre Bemba, the losing candidate in the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on Tuesday fired at police who were trying to break up a protest against the election results. Police fired tear gas at about 200 supporters of Bemba to prevent them getting too close to the Supreme Court.

First National Bank will launch cellphone banking in Botswana on Friday, which will make every handset a potential banking channel. The service will at first only be available on the Mascom network, which has approximately 500&nbsp;000 subscribers.

An Iranian man set a neighbour’s luxury car ablaze to stop him from throwing parties and entertaining poorly veiled women, a newspaper reported on Monday. "Every night, my neighbour had parties and invited badly veiled women … I burned his car to teach him a lesson," said the 24-year-old arsonist, identified only as Soheil, according to the <i>Etemad-Melli</i> newspaper.

The Iraqi tribunal that sentenced ousted president Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity has forwarded its ruling to the appeal court, the first procedural step in the appeal process. "Thirty-four boxes containing the ruling and all documents related to the trial were delivered yesterday [Sunday] to the appeal court," an Iraqi official close to the court said on condition of anonymity.