South Africa’s Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Monday told Western newspaper editors to stop generalising about Africa and concentrate more on the continent’s success stories. Issues of real concern, such as Western poaching of Africa’s best and brightest talent, were being overlooked as the world’s media focused on wars and poverty.
Nuclear-weapons countries have failed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, which threatens world peace, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Monday. She repeated South Africa’s support for international treaties and instruments in the fight against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Withdrawing the recently formed Southern Spears from the Super 14 and Currie Cup competitions has left South Africa red-faced among its rugby-playing peers, franchise chairperson Aldy Meyer said on Monday. He told Parliament’s sport portfolio committee that two major sponsorships, one of them worth R15-million, were put at risk.
A new round of talks on Monday, hosted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which are designed to ease tensions between rival factions, made significant progress. Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the Ramallah-based Parliament, told reporters that he believed agreement on a common approach was within reach.
More white youth need to be involved in commemorating heroes of the country’s past, the National Youth Commission said on Monday. Chairperson Jabu Mbalula, speaking at the launch of the 30th anniversary of the June 16 uprisings in Soweto, said the organisation ”has not succeeded in mobilising the white youth”.
United Nations agencies called on Monday for field hospitals, medicines and tents to be rushed to Indonesia within days as the global relief effort to help tens of thousands of earthquake victims gathered pace. In Geneva, UN and Red Cross agencies met to try to coordinate the huge mobilisation.
Ah, come on, guys, let’s have a bit of fun out there for a change. Television can’t just be soapies, game shows and chat shows. We could have had Die Groot Krokodil show, a rare television interview with PW Botha on the eve of his 90th birthday. But every single station manager in the country was too alarmed at the thought to let it go ahead.
Coalition warplanes bombed Taliban meeting in a mosque in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing up to 50 suspected rebels, Afghan and the United States-led coalition officials said. Five Canadian soldiers were wounded and a suspected Taliban killed in a gun battle elsewhere in the volatile south.
Members of militias fighting for control of the Somali capital could face war-crimes charges for attempting to prevent the wounded and civilians from receiving assistance during the conflict, a United Nations official warned on Monday. The battle between fundamentalist Islamic militias and rival secular combatants has forced about 1 500 to seek treatment.
Transnet and two of its pension funds have decided to dispose of their share in Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, billed as South Africa’s most visited tourist destination. The remaining shareholder, the Transnet Retirement Fund, has yet to decide whether it will sell its 22,6% share, or retain it and push it up to 26%.