Ramaphosa: SA borders 'need to be open for Africans to move freely and to promote business'
Kigali - South Africa's borders need to be open for people – particularly Africans – to move more freely and to promote business, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.
He also reiterated the need for a single currency on the continent.
Ramaphosa told journalists following a summit on the African Continental Free Trade Area on Wednesday that "the easy movement of people across borders and countries should never be seen in a negative sense by us as South Africans".
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Grace Mugabe 'used state-owned ivory as gifts for Asian first ladies': report
Harare - Zimbabwe's former first lady Grace Mugabe ordered national parks officials to release ivory to her from its storerooms to be given as gifts to first ladies in Asia, a newspaper claimed Wednesday.
Environment minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri has commissioned an investigation into the alleged practice and the findings will be released soon.
Unnamed first ladies
"I was told that she (Grace Mugabe) would prevail upon (national parks) officials to release the ivory on the basis that they were the first lady's donations to unnamed fellow first ladies in the Far East," Muchinguri-Kashiri told the private Daily News.
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'Angry' crocodile blocks entrance to Zim hospital - report
Hwange - A crocodile blocked the entrance to a hospital in the middle of Zimbabwe's coal-mining town of Hwange, sparking panic – and some very bizarre stories, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The crocodile was first spotted by taxi drivers on Tuesday evening, said the state-controlled Chronicle. As it charged at patients trying to get into the hospital, panicked residents began phoning the authorities.
"In less than five minutes I had received more than 10 phone calls from residents who were in serious panic mode," Themba Tshuma, an official from the local housing board told the paper.
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'Bitter, senile' Mugabe 'failing to accept it's over and gone' – ex-minister
Harare – Zimbabwean former war veterans minister Tshinga Dube has reportedly described ex-president Robert Mugabe as a "bitter, senile old man", who was "absolutely intoxicated by power, hence his failure to accept that he was no longer president".
According to NewsDay, Dube said this after Mugabe last week told journalists at his mansion in Harare that President Emmerson Mnangagwa had been imposed by the army and was in office illegally.
Mugabe, 94, was forced to quit the political scene he had dominated since independence from Britain in 1980 when the military stepped in and Zanu-PF lawmakers launched impeachment proceedings against their once beloved leader.
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Zim President Mnangagwa pardons 3 000 prisoners to clear packed jails
Harare - Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded ousted Robert Mugabe in November, has pardoned at least 3 000 prisoners to clear out overpopulated jails, officials said on Thursday.
The pardon will see the release of all female prisoners except those serving life terms, as well as all disabled and juvenile prisoners.
Terminally-ill prisoners and those above the age of 60 who have served a third of their time will also be freed.
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At least 9 dead, several hurt in car bomb in Somali capital
Mogadishu - At least nine people have been killed and seven others are wounded in a car bomb blast near a hotel in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, a Somali police officer said on Thursday.
Captain Mohamed Hussein said the explosion occurred near the Weheliye hotel on the busy Makka Almukarramah road. The road has been a target of attacks in the past by the Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabaab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa.
Most of the casualties were pedestrians and traders, Hussein told The Associated Press.
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