United States-led coalition and Afghan troops have killed 49 Taliban insurgents in two separate battles in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry said on Monday. This year’s fighting is the worst since coalition forces ousted the hard-line Taliban government in late 2001. The latest battles were in Deh Rawud district of rugged Uruzgan province over the past two days, a ministry statement said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has asked all its elected members in provincial legislatures and Parliament to lodge letters of resignation, the Mercury reported on Monday. It said this was aimed at rooting out ”dead wood”, and the letters would only be activated in cases where representatives had failed to perform.
A grade 10 pupil was found stabbed to death on the sports fields of a Johannesburg school on Monday morning, said police. The 19-year-old had been stabbed four times, said Captain Schalk Bornman. His body was found at 7am by fellow pupils at Forest High School, in Forest Hill, southern Johannesburg.
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party won two parliamentary by-elections at the weekend, Zimbabwe media said on Monday, confirming its grip on the country’s rural areas. The MDC, which marked its seventh anniversary with a rally in the capital Harare at the weekend, is still struggling to make inroads into rural areas.
The 603-carat Lesotho Promise diamond, the 15th largest rough diamond ever discovered, has been sold in Antwerp for $12,36-million, according to Gem Diamonds, owners of Letseng Mine in Lesotho where the diamond was recently discovered. "This has been a fantastic day for the Letseng Diamond Mine and for the people of Lesotho," said Lesotho’s Minister of Natural Resources, Dr Khaketla.
United States economist Edmund S Phelps won the 2006 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for work on trade-offs in macroeconomic policy, the Nobel jury said, noting that his work had improved understanding of how policy affected welfare for present and future generations.
Ever wanted the mobile number 123 456 789? In Iran it can be yours, if you have tens of thousands of dollars to spare. The Islamic republic’s telecom
If he had the money, he would sue the Sunday Times for the story ”ANC chief in R50m get-rich-quick deal”, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) head of the Presidency Smuts Ngonyama said on Monday. Speaking on Tim Modise’s show on Cape Talk 567/Radio 702, he said: ”I see they don’t say how many shares were given to me and how many shares were sold … ”
The case against alleged serial rapist Mongezi Samuel Jinxela (36) has been postponed to November 6 to allow time for further investigation. Jinxela, who is accused of raping 70 women between 1994 and 2004, appeared in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday. He was also facing charges of robbery, indecent assault, assault and of kidnapping.
Zimbabwe has set up an intellectual desk tasked with reversing the brain drain affecting many sectors of the economy, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Monday. Its website said the desk, under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, was expected to start operating early next month.