JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Voters in the highland African kingdom of Lesotho go to the polls on Saturday in a wide-open election that analysts say could end up without a clear result, as happened in 1998 when South Africa had to send in troops to quell major civil unrest.

Campaigning has been peaceful but a lack of opinion polls, and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s decision in February to quit the ruling party and go it alone under the banner of the new Democratic Congress (DC) party, have kept the landlocked nation’s two million people on tenterhooks.

South African pop stars have helped draw large crowds to political rallies, livening up what is normally a sleepy backwater known mainly for being entirely surrounded by South Africa and having the continent’s best cross-country skiing.

“It has brought a lot of excitement on the part of the people. We think there will be a high turnout because people are very interested to see what is going to happen,” former Malawi President Bakili Muluzi, head of a Commonwealth observer team, told Reuters.

Results are expected to trickle into the capital, Maseru, on Sunday, and are most likely to leave Mosisili’s DC at the front of the pack to form a new government but without a clear majority, analysts say.

If the DC is unable or unwilling to form a coalition with either of the other two main parties – the Lesotho Congress for Democracy and the All Basotho Convention – it could push the former British colony into choppy constitutional waters.

“The prospect of the DC being the party with the most MPs but not able to form a government – that would be a very disturbing scenario,” said Hoolo ‘Nyane, director of the Transformation Resource Centre, a Maseru think-tank.

JOHANNESBURG, May 10 (Reuters) – Two models at the eye of a race storm that has exposed the thin veneer of social harmony in South Africa 18 years after the end of apartheid shook hands on Thursday and vowed to work towards Nelson Mandela’s vision of a non-racial “Rainbow Nation”.

The brouhaha erupted last week when 20-year-old blonde Jessica Leandra dos Santos – voted ’2011 Model of the Year’ by readers of men’s magazine FHM – tweeted about an “arrogant and disrespectful kaffir” she had encountered at a supermarket.

The apartheid-era slang for black person, which originally comes from the Arabic for ‘unbeliever’, is considered extremely offensive in South Africa, where media refer to it only as the ‘K-word’.

A few days later, 20-year-old aspirant black model Tshidi Thamana responded with a Twitter post saying that if “all white people were killed”, blacks wouldn’t have to put up with racial abuse from the likes of dos Santos.

She also referred to an anti-apartheid song called “Shoot the Boer (white farmer)” popularised by Julius Malema, until recently the radical leader of the youth wing of the ruling African National Congress.

Both comments sparked outrage on the Internet, in newspapers and on radio talk shows from public and politicians alike, while sponsors quickly ditched dos Santos.

The opposition Democratic Alliance, perceived as the party of white privilege, also jumped at the chance to burnish its multi-racial credentials by having its black spokesman, Mmusi Maimane, host a reconciliation breakfast between the pair.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels killed 15 members of the security forces in an ambush on Wednesday, a monitoring group said, as a human rights organization accused Damascus of war crimes in last month’s run-up to a U.N.-brokered truce.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the 14-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, said two rebel militiamen also died in clashes that followed the ambush in the northern province of Aleppo.

State media carried no news of the attack, the latest in a series of heavy losses inflicted on pro-Assad forces in the last week by some of the disparate militias fighting for his downfall.

Twelve soldiers died in a firefight in the eastern town of Deir al-Zor on Tuesday, the Observatory said, and nine more, including security officials, died in twin suicide bombs in the restive town of Idlib on Monday, according to state media.

Most independent media are barred from Syria or have their movements restricted, making it hard to verify such reports.

The United Nations says Syrian forces have killed 9,000 people in a violent crackdown on mass protests that started against Assad in March 2011. The initially peaceful demonstrations which have since turned into a bloody guerrilla insurgency.

Damascus says 2,600 personnel have been killed by “armed terrorists”. Since a U.N.-backed ceasefire came into effect on April 12, it has cited rebel assaults as justification of its right to respond to “any violation or attack”.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Violence erupted in two Syrian provinces on Tuesday, with a rights group reporting 10 civilians dead in an army mortar attack and 12 soldiers killed in a fire-fight with rebel gunmen as U.N. monitors sought to shore up a shaky ceasefire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the 13-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, said nine members of one family died in mortar bomb blasts in a village in the northern province of Idlib.

In the eastern Deir al-Zor province, troops hit back with mortar and heavy machinegun fire after losing a dozen of their own to insurgents, killing at least one villager and destroying a school building, the anti-Assad Observatory added.

The United Nations says Syrian forces have killed more than 9,000 people since the uprising began in March 2011.

Like other Arab revolts against autocratic rulers, it began with peaceful mass protests but a violent government response has spawned an increasingly bloody insurgency. Damascus says rebels have killed more than 2,600 soldiers and police.

A U.N. ceasefire brokered in mid-April led to a brief lull but failed to halt the conflict. Rebels starved of funding and ammunition appear to be stepping up a bombing campaign.

Explosions blew the fronts off buildings in the northwestern city of Idlib on Monday, killing nine people and wounding 100, including security personnel, according to state television, which blamed the blasts on “terrorist” suicide bombers.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Gunmen in inflatable dinghies attacked a military unit on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, state media said on Saturday, the first seaborne assault in a 13-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The nocturnal raid, along with the killings of at least 15 people in violence in two areas near the capital Damascus, underlined the threadbare state of a two-week-old, U.N.-brokered ceasefire accord.

The official SANA news agency said several gunmen and soldiers were killed in a firefight that followed the coastal attack near the northern port of Latakia, 35 km (22 miles) south of the Turkish border.

“The fighting … resulted in the death and wounding of a number of military personnel while the number of those killed from the terrorist group was not known because they attacked the military unit at night,” SANA said.

It did not state the nationality of the attackers.

Damascus has accused Turkey of allowing weapons and funds to flow to insurgents throughout the uprising, the latest in a wave of revolts across the Arab world against autocratic rule. Turkey also plays host to the leadership of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Lebanese authorities found weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and rifles on board a ship intercepted in the Mediterranean which may have been trying to supply Syrian insurgents, security sources said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed nine people including security officers at a Damascus mosque on Friday, Syria’s interior ministry said, in another blow to a fraying U.N.-brokered truce between President Bashar al-Assad and rebels fighting for his downfall.

The explosion happened as worshippers were leaving the Zain al-Abideen mosque, which was under heavy security due to its reputation as a launch pad for anti-Assad demonstrations after Friday prayers.

A local resident said security officials at the scene told him a man in military uniform had triggered an explosives vest when he was challenged by soldiers as he walked towards the area.

Many of the body parts scattered across the tarmac were wearing green military-style clothing, the resident said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. But it was close to the site of a January 6 suicide bombing which was claimed by a previously unknown anti-Assad Sunni Islamist group calling itself the al-Nusra Front.

In a statement on state television, the interior ministry said 26 people were wounded in the explosion, one of several bombings on Friday.

“We had been trying to go to pray in the area but they stopped us at a checkpoint. Security weren’t letting us in because there are usually protests there,” one anti-Assad activist told Reuters by telephone.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed nine people and wounded 20 outside a central Damascus mosque on Friday, Syrian state television said, in another blow to a peace plan that the United Nations says President Bashar al-Assad has failed to honour.

The blast ripped through worshippers at the Zain al-Abideen mosque, which was under heavy security for Friday prayers, often a launchpad for anti-Assad protests, opposition activists said. State media said security officials were among the wounded.

“We had been trying to go pray in the area but they stopped us at a checkpoint. Security weren’t letting us in because there are usually protests there,” one anti-Assad activist told Reuters in neighbouring Lebanon.

“Then we heard the blast. It was so loud and then ambulances came rushing past us,” the activist added. “I could see a few body parts and pieces of flesh on the road. The front of a restaurant looked destroyed. People were screaming.”

State television showed images of blackened flesh and a mangled hand lying on a motorway underpass as soldiers and police cleared the area to make way for ambulance crews.

A resident who spoke to security officials at the scene said a man had approached soldiers near the mosque and detonated a bomb belt when challenged. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Earlier, a loud blast was heard in the capital’s al Sinaa district near a garage used by government buses and pro-Assad militiamen tasked with preventing demonstrations.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian government and rebels traded blame on Thursday for a huge explosion which killed 16 people in the city of Hama, as a two-week-old U.N.-backed ceasefire looked increasingly fragile.

Syria blamed “terrorist” bomb-makers for Wednesday’s blast. Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud also accused rebel militiamen of repeated violations of the ceasefire and said Damascus was “reserving the right to respond to any violation or attack”, state news agency SANA reported.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the cause of the explosion was unclear, but also gave a death toll of 16. The Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots opposition group, said more than 50 people had been killed by what it said was a military rocket.

The blast in Hama, a centre of unrest against President Bashar-al-Assad, has added to doubts about a ceasefire brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who has said Assad failed to order his troops and tanks back to barracks as promised.

But outside powers are deeply divided on how to shore up the ceasefire, which has led to only a small reduction in violence in the 13-month uprising, during which the United Nations estimates Syrian forces have killed 9,000 people.

France, leading Western calls for tougher action against Assad, says it is planning to push next month for a “Chapter 7″ Security Council resolution if Assad’s forces do not pull back.

Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter allows the Security Council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention. In the case of Syria, Western powers have said they intend to push for an arms embargo and sanctions if Damascus fails to comply with the Annan plan.

JOHANNESBURG, March 27 (Reuters) – South Africa imported no oil from Iran in January, according to government trade and customs data, suggesting Africa’s biggest economy has heeded a call from the United States to halt oil shipments from Tehran as part of Western sanctions.

Trade figures showed marked increases in January imports from Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, indicating they have replaced Iran, usually South Africa’s biggest supplier of crude accounting for a quarter of its oil imports.

Pretoria has come under Western pressure to cut Iranian crude imports as part of sanctions designed to halt Tehran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, although it has been unclear how the diplomatically non-aligned Africa nation would respond.

U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman visited South Africa on Jan. 17 to push home the message from Washington.

Figures on the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) website showed South Africa imported just 6.2 million rand ($806,200) of goods from Iran in January, compared with a monthly average of more than 2.2 billion rand $290 million during last year.

The January 2012 figure is less than 1 percent of that for January 2011. Separately, customs figures from the South African Revenue Service showed zero oil imports from the Islamic republic for the first month of this year.

Qatari imports soared to 1.76 billion rand in January, from a monthly average of 0.3 billion throughout 2011, while Saudi imports rose to 3 billion rand from a monthly average of 2.7 billion last year.

SEMONGKONG, Lesotho (Reuters) – They came on horseback or by foot, trudging through Lesotho’s highlands and clutching tattered identity documents to back their claims that South Africa’s gold mining firms ruined their lungs.

On one day in January alone, around 40 former gold miners and widows crowded into a municipal office in Semongkong, 120 km (80 miles) east of Lesotho’s capital. They were there to add their thumbprints to the names of nearly 7,000 others who are threatening the biggest class action suit Africa has ever seen.

In South Africa, a country still grappling with the consequences of apartheid, the case touches on race, politics and history. The implications for its gold mining industry and for its relations with the government – already strained by past talk of nationalization – are huge.

The men – some South African, others from neighboring Lesotho – worked deep underground for many years, often with insufficient protection. They inhaled silica dust from gold-bearing rocks and later contracted silicosis. A disease which causes shortness of breath, a persistent cough and chest pains, it makes people highly susceptible to tuberculosis, which kills. It has no known cure.

The miners are led by Richard Spoor, a provincial lawyer who won a case last year that laid the legal ground for claims for compensation. He has help from South Carolina law firm Motley Rice, which made its name suing asbestos and tobacco companies and is one of the largest litigators in the United States. Neither firm will disclose commercial terms.

“We’re signing up 500 people a week at the moment,” Spoor said.

A successful suit could collectively cost mining companies such as AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and global giant AngloAmerican billions of dollars, according to legal and industry experts. The largest settlement to date by the mining industry in South Africa was $100 million in 2003 in a case brought by Spoor against an asbestos company.