The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned on Monday a suicide bombing against the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, saying it flouted Islamic tenets. OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was "deeply upset by this violent and extremist act", the 57-nation bloc said in a statement.
India’s truck and car maker Tata Motors announced on Monday it had completed its acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover from ailing United States car maker Ford for $2,3-billion. The company said the deal includes the "ownership of Jaguar and Land Rover, all necessary intellectual property rights, manufacturing plants and two Britain-based advanced designing centres".
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has not given up on the parliamentary process dealing with the Expropriation Bill, party leader Helen Zille said on Monday. She said the fact that DA MP Sydney Opperman last week staged a walkout during public hearings on the measure does not mean that the party will no longer participate in further parliamentary processes.
Troubled former England player Paul Gascoigne has been sectioned under the mental health laws in Britain, police said on Monday. In the latest incident to highlight 41-year-old Gascoigne’s increasingly bizarre behaviour, he was detained in Hemel Hempstead near London after ”appearing unwell and in an agitated state”, police said.
The relocation process of displaced foreign nationals to temporary shelters around Johannesburg will continue, despite complaints by some residents, a government official said on Monday. ”This is a temporary measure that will not impact negatively on the areas where foreign nationals are staying,” spokesperson for the Gauteng government Thabo Masebe said.
There were a few tense moments on Monday when a crowd of several hundred refugees marched to Parliament to air their grievances over the recent xenophobic violence. After being addressed by, among others, Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign, sections of the crowd surged towards a small line of police officers outside the main gates of Parliament.
Shortages of bread in Zimbabwe are expected to worsen after preparations for the country’s winter wheat crop failed, state media said on Monday. The state-controlled daily Herald said that farmers planted 8 963 hectares of wheat this winter, only 13% of a government target of 70 000 hectares.
South Africa’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dropped to 49,1 in May on a seasonally adjusted basis from 54,1 in April, pressured by weak new sales orders and higher production costs. The index, a measure of underlying manufacturing activity, was below the key 50 level that signals expansion.
Iran’s president said on Monday Israel would soon disappear off the map and that the ”satanic power” of the United States faced destruction, in his latest verbal attack on the Islamic Republic’s arch-foes. Opposition to Israel is a fundamental principle in Shi’ite Muslim Iran, which backs Palestinian militants opposed to peace.
A United Nations nuclear watchdog team will visit Syria on June 22 to 24 to pursue an investigation into United States intelligence alleging that Damascus secretly built an atomic reactor, the agency’s chief said on Monday. The alleged reactor site was destroyed in an Israeli air raid last September and Washington handed over intelligence to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).