A huge asteroid, known as 2004 XP14, skimmed about 432 820km from the Earth late on Sunday and early on Monday. That’s slightly farther away than the moon. It was expected to be visible as a small moving dot to amateur sky watchers with good telescopes in North America and as a fainter object viewed from Europe.
The National Prosecuting Authority on Monday started exhuming remains of eight Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres who were killed in the apartheid era between the years 1984 and 1986 and buried as unidentified paupers at Mmabatho cemetery in the North West province.
Telkom said on Monday there has been no discussions on the sale of the South African telecommunications group. The group said it had taken note of speculative reports in the weekend press that United Kingdom group Vodafone was interested in a takeover bid of the fixed-line operator.
Sentech has been given the go-ahead to roll out digital terrestrial television and take South Africa’s TV industry into the digital age. Sentech will play a major role in the 2010 World Cup by ensuring that South Africa’s analogue broadcasting infrastructure is upgraded to a digital-ready terrestrial system.
More than 30 people were killed on Monday when a metro train derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia in an apparent accident, as pilgrims began gathering ahead of a papal visit, regional officials said. An interior ministry spokesperson said any terrorist link had been "completely ruled out".
Four men have been arrested in connection with the rape of two foreign missionaries and the shooting of one of them on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast. Captain Vincent Pandarum said the two women — one from Kenya and the other from the United States — were raped on Friday night as they were walking home on the Old Harding Road near Oslo Beach.
It seems the African Union (AU) is repeating the ”sad past” of the old Organisation for African Unity, particularly with regard to Zimbabwe and Sudan, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has again outwitted President Thabo Mbeki, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the AU, DA foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Gibson said.
London-listed platinum explorer African Platinum (Afplats) on Monday announced a resource update for its Imbasa and Inkosi properties in South Africa that resulted in a 73% increase in its total mineral resources, when the company’s Leeuwkop property was included, to 92-million ounces.
A small outbreak of avian influenza was detected on an ostrich farm about 30km west of Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Monday. Preliminary surveillance indicated that the outbreak was probably limited to the single farm on which it was detected and which had been put under quarantine, the department added.
South Africa’s revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations came into effect on Monday, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism announced. ”It’s all systems go … we are happy that the new regulations are now law in this country,” department spokesperson JP Louw said. The new regulations had been revised to be quicker, simpler and better, and resulted from a substantial consultative process.