Former National Intelligence Agency director general Billy Masetlha will ask the Constitutional Court on Thursday to overturn a Pretoria High Court ruling upholding his dismissal. Pretoria High Court Judge Ben du Plessis ruled in December 2006 that a breakdown of trust was a lawful reason for Masetlha’s suspension and sacking.
Gunmen seized four more foreign workers amid a dramatic rise in violence that has roiled Nigeria’s southern petroleum-producing region, oil industry officials said on Wednesday. The attackers carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a transport vessel carrying the workers in the southern Niger Delta minutes before midnight on Tuesday.
The editor of the Mercury newspaper was shot and wounded in an attempted hijacking at his Durban home. Superintendent Danelia Veldhuizen said the attack happened as David Canning was driving up the driveway of his house in Durban’s Kloof suburb around 9.30pm on Tuesday.
Tony Blair is expected to set a date for his resignation as British prime minister when he makes an announcement about his future on Thursday. Blair, who notched up 10 years in power last week, is expected to stay as prime minister and Labour Party leader until a successor can take over at the end of June or early July.
On some days there are only five to seven ambulances to serve Port Elizabeth’s 1,3-million residents, the media reported on Wednesday. This means one ambulance for 260Â 000 people. The national norm is one ambulance per 10Â 000. Ambulance staff, who asked not to be named, said they were becoming increasingly frustrated.
National Intelligence Agency (NIA) agents visited an office of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) on Wednesday to question officials about a looming strike, according to the union. Spokesperson Jon Lewis said Sadtu was concerned that this might amount to intimidation of its members.
The party of a renegade Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) general on Wednesday threatened to withdraw its troops from the DRC’s armed forces, sparking fears of renewed violence. Laurent Nkunda’s fighters had started integrating into the army in January following an accord with Kinshasa.
A bank employee won R1-million for helping to protect the bank against crime — for the second time. Moses Subjee, an off-line equipment operator at First National Bank (FNB) in Johannesburg, could not believe his luck when FNB CEO Michael Jordaan presented him with the Vow of Vigilance award, said FNB spokesperson Sue Naidoo in a statement on Wednesday.
After centuries of roving around South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria’s famed vervet monkeys have been forced out by rampant development, with some of the last relocated on Wednesday. The fragile species, known for communication methods very similar to humans, face extinction.
Chad pledged on Wednesday to work to demobilise hundreds of child soldiers fighting in the ranks of the government army and rebel groups across the conflict-torn Central African country. President Idriss Déby Itno’s government made the commitment in an agreement signed with the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef.