A senior Iranian sports official said on Wednesday that a presidential order to end a ban on women spectators in stadiums did not apply to unmarried females. ”The plan to have women in stadiums is merely for families. It does not consider single women. They are still banned from entering stadiums,” said Mohammad Aliabadi, the head of Iran’s physical education organisation.
The bodies of three murdered laundry workers may still be exhumed as part of further investigation into the case, police said on Wednesday. On Monday, the case against six people accused of murdering the women was struck off the roll due to insufficient evidence.
Striking security guards whose march was aborted in Pretoria earlier in the day arrived in Johannesburg on Wednesday afternoon to continue their strike action for an 11% wage increase. As they marched in central Johannesburg, nine guards who allegedly threw stones at the police were shot at with rubber bullets and left with minor injuries.
President Thabo Mbeki was hailed as the ”good guy” last week for sending a controversial law back to Parliament. But credit shouldn’t go to him as much as to the system of South African democracy. What appeared unconstitutional was the way the Bill gave the government control over the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) has distanced itself from Monday night’s murder of six people at a train station in Benoni, saying ”no member of Satawu was involved”. ”There is no way any member of Satawu can be involved in any killing,” Satawu spokesperson Jackson Simon said on Wednesday.
Kenyan security forces on Wednesday fought Ethiopian gunmen along the increasingly restive border between the two countries where drought has fuelled inter-clan and tribal clashes and heightened tensions. At least one person, a Kenyan officer, was wounded in the gun battle that occurred when a joint team of Kenyan army, police and border patrol encountered an armed gang that had crossed the border from southern Ethiopia.
Iraq’s leadership, including the Sunni Arab camp involved in efforts to forge a unity government, on Wednesday jointly condemned the defiant battle cry from al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Al-Zarqawi has launched a genocide against the Iraqi people, branding the Shi’ites as rawafidh [rejectionists], the Kurds as traitors, and the Sunni Arabs as renegades," said President Jalal Talabani .
Pakistani police have registered a blasphemy case against Danish cartoonists and some European newspapers over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide protests this year, they said on Wednesday. Internet search engines Google.com and Yahoo.com were also named in the complaint filed by Iqbal Haider, an activist of a small political party, police said.
Three South African Airways (SAA) planes were isolated and searched on Wednesday morning after warnings that there were bombs on each plane, the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) said. ”Information was received from the police around 11.50am this morning [Wednesday] to the effect that there were bomb warnings on three SAA aircraft,” Acsa spokesperson Solomon Makgale said.
Andrew Symonds smashed an unbeaten century to help Australia score a 67-run victory over Bangladesh in the second one-day international on Wednesday. The Queenslander’s 103 not out helped the tourists set a tough 251-run target for Bangladesh on a pitch not conducive to stroke play. The home side were bowled out for 183 in reply.