The Times

Sunday Times editor Bongani Siqoko said on Wednesday that Joubert's employment was terminated on January 19.

The health minister says the media portrays the department as failing to provide drugs for patients, but supply is also subject to business decisions.

Judge Willem Heath's allegations about Thabo Mbeki may yet cost President Zuma's latest appointee his newly reacquired job as the head of the SIU.

Areas in and around the Kempton Park CBD will be without power until Sunday, the Ekurhuleni municipality said on Thursday, following a fire at a substation in Spartan on Monday. The crisis has left one resident dead and residential and business areas without electricity. Meanwhile, South Africans will be free of scheduled power cuts next week, Eskom said on Thursday.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Bleary-eyed readers of the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> on Tuesday April 1 could be forgiven for falling for Eskom's bold new "sector-sharing plan" to save electricity. We round up some of the day's best pranks.

Zambia has ended negotiations with Standard Bank, Africa's largest bank by assets, to finance a $1,2-billion (R9,7-billion) oil-import deal after the two parties failed to reach agreement. Talks between the Zambian government and Stanbic Bank Zambia, a unit of Standard Bank, were initially expected to be concluded by mid-January.

A San Diego judge on Thursday ordered coffee giant Starbucks to pay more than $100-million in tips and interest owed to staff across outlets in California. It was not immediately clear how the money might be divided up between the estimated 100&nbsp;000 current and former baristas.

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead at a Manhattan apartment, naked in bed with sleeping pills nearby, police said. He was 28. Ledger, who moved to the United States at age 19, quickly turned away from typical teen films and instead started to build a career on more challenging roles.

A Thai chef cooked up fears of a chemical attack in London when fumes from his eye-wateringly hot chilli sauce led to the emergency services being called out. Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon, who works at the Thai Cottage restaurant in Soho, was dry-frying bird's eye chillies as he prepared a huge batch of nam prik pao.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin park their jet just a stone's throw from their offices, paying $1,3-million a year for rights at a federally maintained airfield, the <i>New York Times</i> reported Thursday. Why put up with bothersome local traffic when you can shell out a princely sum for take-off and landing rights just a few minutes from your office?

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been accused of systematic pro-government bias after taking a different stance from most fellow journalists in coverage of the controversial health minister. Allegations against the SABC mounted after its executive chief, Dali Mpofu, sent a resignation letter to the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef).