A spokesman for former US president George H.W. Bush has apologised after erroneously issuing a statement of condolence stating that South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela had died.

Nelson Mandela went home in an ambulance after nearly three months in a hospital that became the focus of a global outpouring of concern.

A probe into policing in the troubled new country of South Sudan has uncovered 11,000 fake names on the payroll.

Mohammed Abdi, an asylum seeker from Somalia, counts himself to have made two new sets of friends this month.