An application challenging the constitutionality of regulations obliging doctors to acquire special licences to dispense medicines was dismissed with costs in the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Doctors contend that the regulations infringe on their constitutionally protected rights and those of their patients.
Doctors may appeal ruling
Eskom and the National Research Foundation have set aside R4,8-million for a programme aimed at developing black researchers, the power utility announced on Thursday. The programme, launched on Thursday night, arose out of a concern about the increasingly declining number of experienced researchers in science, engineering and technology.
A spacecraft the size of a small bus ended a seven-year, 3,2-billion kilometre journey and began a new era of exploration on Thursday morning as it sped over gas giant Saturn, and sent back the first closeups of the rings which have tantalised astronomers for four centuries.
The price of fuel will drop by 17 cents a litre next Wednesday, the Minerals and Energy Department announced on Friday. This will apply to 93 octane — leaded and unleaded. There will be a 16 cents per litre decrease in the retail price of 95 unleaded, 97 leaded and a 10 cent decrease for 97 unleaded.
The Nigerian state of Kano, the centre of a polio outbreak in Africa, has pledged to resume vaccinations against the disease after accepting that immunisation was not a western plot to harm Muslims. The authorities told the World Health Organisation that an immunisation campaign would begin this month in the wake of the spread of the virus across the continent.
A doctor shortage has led to the Red Cross Children’s hospital closing its doors to patients requiring medical emergency assistance on a number of evenings. To address the situation in the long term, the hospital called for the quicker processing of work permits for foreign doctors at the home affairs department and registration through the Health Professions Council.
Mehdi, still hobbling after nine months, likened the torture to having his ”brain pulled out by a magnet”. Strapped to an electric chair inside the bowels of the Azerbaijani police’s organised crime unit, metal panels were put under his feet, he said. A plastic bib was tied to his front, and headphones with earpieces like the metal tip of a doctor’s otoscope were put inside his ears.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is concerned about the slow pace of informal talks aimed at resolving the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, his office said on Thursday. ”The president is very worried that the talks are moving too slowly,” his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is worried that amendments to immigration law have retained work permit provisions that create inequality between foreign and local workers. And it is adamant that attempts to attract foreign scarce skills should not undermine the training of locals.
Peter Brown is likely to be remembered in South Africa as the national chairperson of the Liberal Party. He was one of its founders in 1953 and was its chairperson when it disbanded in 1968, owing to the prohibition of racially mixed political organisations. Michael Gardiner pays tribute to the deceased.