The search for an unidentified object that apparently crashed into the sea at Port Shepstone on Saturday will resume at the weekend as there were no bodies to search for, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said on Tuesday. ”The NSRI’s core business is rescuing people and here there is no loss of life involved,” said NSRI Shelley Beach station commander Eddie Noyons.
Oil prices jumped above the $70 level in Asian trade on Tuesday as experts forecast a potentially devastating Atlantic hurricane season that could push prices to the $100 mark, dealers said. At 2.30pm local time, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, was up 29 cents at $70,25 a barrel.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana has called on trade unions representing striking security guards and employers to resume negotiations, the government news agency, BuaNews, reported on Tuesday. Mdladlana said he had been asked to intervene in the impasse over wages and working conditions in the security industry. But, he said, according to the law he could not do so.
Less than three months after opening for business, Absa Islamic Banking announced on Tuesday that it will offer two more products to its Sharia-compliant offering. These are a cheque and savings account. And, as is the case with all other Absa Islamic Banking products, the new additions meet the conditions laid down by Islamic law.
Sudan’s Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi on Tuesday criticised the Darfur peace agreement signed earlier this month as partial and incomplete, a senior official from his party told Agence France-Presse. The Popular Congress Party head met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s top envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk.
English clubs are threatening to scuttle England’s new rugby Test with the All Blacks in November because they say they’re not obliged to make their players available. England’s Rugby Football Union confirmed the November 5 Test on Monday along with live TV and ticket packages to help christen the new £100-million (-million) South Stand at Twickenham.
Blackouts hit parts of the Western Cape on Monday night as Eskom was unable to provide sufficient electricity to meet demand, the Cape Times reported. Its website said on Tuesday the blackouts came after Koeberg’s Unit Two generator was shut down to be refueled and for standard safety upgrades.
Africa saw a reduction in conflicts last year but gross human rights violations including killings and rape continued in volatile areas, Amnesty International said its annual report. ”The signing of several peace agreements in 2005 resulted in a decline in armed conflict across the region,” the London-based body’s 2006 International Report said.
Travelling across the Siberian steppe in a manner reserved for reclusive world leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, or sages like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho is getting a rapturous reception in his specially converted train.
United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are to discuss in Washington this week a programme of troop withdrawals from Iraq that will be much faster and more ambitious than originally planned. Britain is to begin with a handover to Iraqi security forces in Muthanna province in July and the Americans will follow suit in Najaf, the Shia holy city.