South Africa and China have signed an extension to the memorandum of understanding in the labour field agreed to in 2002. Briefing the media at Parliament after the signing ceremony on Monday, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said the agreement focused on human resources development, job creation strategies and cooperation in the International Labour Organisation.
A leading member of Lesotho’s Cabinet resigned Monday and launched a new party to challenge the Lesotho Congress for Democracy’s decade-long grip on power in elections next year. Science and Communications Minister Tom Thabane, an ex-foreign minister, said the government of the tiny Southern African kingdom had lost its way.
A senior South African diplomat has been transferred back home from South Africa House in London following allegations of misdemeanour by his son, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. According to the Sunday Independent, the official’s 12-year-old son was under investigation by British police for taking a ”spray gun” to school.
Judgement in the bail application of senior Scorpions advocate Portia Kgantsi was reserved in the Randburg Regional Court until next Monday. For the prosecution, advocate Herman Broodryk on Monday argued that the severity of charges against Kgantsi warranted the state’s opposition to bail.
Veteran politician Helen Suzman is determined to get back on her feet again unaided after a recent bad fall. ”I’m really doing very well, I think. I can’t manage without a crutch yet but I’m determined I will soon,” said Suzman on Monday. She was at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg for the launch of the book Mandela: The Authorised Portrait.
The Free State Rugby Union offices in Bloemfontein have been swamped by hundreds of Cheetahs and Blue Bulls supporters since early on Monday morning trying to get tickets for the Currie Cup final over the coming weekend. ”The phones actually started to ring on Saturday just after the Cheetah-Sharks game,” Piet de Necker, spokesperson for the Free State Cheetahs Company, said.
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels reiterated a threat on Monday to keep fighting one of Africa’s longest insurgencies unless international arrest warrants for their top commanders are scrapped. The government and rebels signed a long-awaited truce in August, supposed to give both sides breathing space while peace talks aimed at ending their 20-year rebellion continue.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was formally nominated as United Nations secretary general on Monday, only hours after North Korea defied the world body by announcing a nuclear test. The UN Security Council voted by acclamation, thereby effectively anointing Ban as successor to Secretary General Kofi Annan.
South Africa has condemned the underground nuclear test in North Korea and has called on that country to abandon its nuclear programme, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. ”The South African government is deeply concerned at the reported nuclear test by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” said foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
Police arrested 22 people during a protest against increased taxi fares in Pietermaritzburg’s Copesville suburb on Monday. Initial reports said that tear gas was used to disperse protesters. However, there were also unconfirmed reports that stun grenades and rubber bullets were used by police to disperse the estimated 1Â 000-strong crowd.