New York - An Australian billionaire is getting ready to build a new version of the Titanic that could set sail in late 2016.

Clive Palmer unveiled blueprints for the famously doomed ship's namesake Tuesday at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. He said construction is scheduled to start soon in China.

Johannesburg - Unnamed friends of Reeva Steenkamp have hired a private detective to investigate her death, a report said on Tuesday.

Steenkamp’s family, however, told Beeld they were unaware of the private detective.

“The private detective may have been misunderstood to say that I was the one who asked him to investigate,” said her father, Barry, from Port Elizabeth.

Johannesburg - Gauteng police on Monday declined to comment on a report that a top Hawks forensic data analyst would be called in to study cellphone information relating to the murder investigation against paralympian Oscar Pistorius.

"We are allowing the investigation to take its course. We are not going to run the investigation blow by blow in the media," said Brigadier Neville Malila.

Pretoria - Oscar Pistorius was on Friday released from custody after being granted bail, but the conditions thereof severely restrict his movement.

Pistorius thanked Magistrate Desmond Nair, and walked out of the Pretoria Magistrate's Court C, nine days after news broke that he had shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in a bathroom at his house, on Valentine's Day.

After listening to extensive argument, Nair ruled that he was not a flight risk, and that the State had not shown that he had a propensity for violence.

Pretoria - The degree of violence in the death of Oscar Pistorius's girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was "horrific", prosecutor Gerrie Nel said at the athlete's bail application on Friday.

"We say that the degree of violence present in this case is horrific," Nel said in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court as he opposed the granting of bail for Pistorius.