A team from the national Department of Social Development is visiting the Western Cape to outline the processes of the establishment of the South African Social Security Agency, the government news agency said on Monday. The agency will ultimately take over from provinces the payment of social welfare grants.
Zimbabwe is threatening to close down non-governmental organisations and arrest their employees if they do not obtain permission from the government for their activities, the state-run Sunday Mail reported. The paper said ”quite a number” of NGOs had not registered for government licences and were believed to be operating illegally and engaging in political activities.
Germany’s ambassador to Botswana has rejected calls for reparations to be paid to the Herero people, who were victims of an extermination campaign under German colonial rule 100 years ago. Ambassador Hans-Dietrich von Bothmer said that while Germany regretted ”this unfortunate past”, it was not prepared to offer compensation.
The government of Equatorial Guinea denied on Sunday that its president had an account with a scandal-ridden United States bank which he used for fraudulent purposes. The 165-year-old Riggs bank, which has held accounts for US presidents, has faced allegations that it illegally laundered money for foreign officials.
Four men were killed when their light aircraft crashed into a bus depot in Germiston on Sunday, East Rand police said. Police spokesperson Sergeant Zithini Dlamini said the single engine Cessna Centurion crashed at the Marcopolo bus depot near the Rand airport at about 12.20pm.
Disney may have colonised the imagination of the world’s children for the best part of 80 years, but — remarkably in one of the world’s most ostentatiously Christian countries — the entertainment company has done so without the aid of God, a new book points out.
Yasser Arafat was facing a mounting challenge to his authority on Sunday amid rebellion in the Gaza Strip against corruption and incompetence, and a threat by the Palestinian prime minister to bring down the government if he is not given more power.
The South African rand was firm against the major currencies in quiet early trade on Monday. On Friday the rand reached its best level since January 1999 when it touched 5,8850 rand per US dollar in late after-hours trade. At 9am, the rand was quoted at 5,9413 per dollar from an overnight close of 5,9496 on Friday, 6,1001 on Thursday and 6,0651 on Wednesday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ally and former United States president Bill Clinton on Sunday reopened the sensitive issue of Saddam Hussein’s attempts to buy uranium in Africa. Speaking on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost, Clinton, who is promoting his memoirs, said there was ”no evidence” the CIA had ever told US President George Bush about the claim.
Carmen bin Ladin and her daughters, Wafah, Najia and Noor, are the only Bin Ladins in the Western world to be listed in the telephone book. They live in Switzerland, where Carmen grew up and where she fled 20 years ago from her marriage to Osama’s older brother, Yeslam bin Laden. As a sister-in-law of the world’s most notorious terrorist, Bin Ladin gained a unique insight into the inner workings of the fabulously wealthy Saudi clan.