About 150 school children were hospitalised with suspected food poisoning after attending an event at the Dome in Randburg on Thursday, education authorities said. ”We understand from the emergency services that most of them are safe,” spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi said in the afternoon.
Namibian President Sam Nujoma travelled to Zambia on Thursday ahead of trips to Kenya, Tanzania and later this month to China and Malaysia as part of a farewell tour before stepping down in March. Nujoma, who is travelling with members of his Cabinet, is to open a trade fair in Zambia.
Microsoft said on Thursday it is revamping its internet search operation and preparing to launch its own search engine later this year to compete directly with Google and Yahoo. The immediate change will be a ”cleaner look” for its MSN Search page that separates paid and unpaid search results and provides direct links to Microsoft’s encyclopedia service.
Kuwait’s information minister has slammed Saddam Hussein for defending Iraq’s 1990 invasion of its Gulf neighbour during his Thursday court appearance and said the former Iraqi leader should be executed. ”The criminal still believes he is the president of Iraq,” Mohammed Abul-Hassan said in Kuwait.
The New National Party on Thursday warned ”certain individuals and institutions” that they are exposing themselves, through unfounded accusations, to possible civil and criminal defamation claims. This came after two Democratic Alliance Western Cape MPLs laid charges of bribery and/or corruption against senior NNP members.
Two Democratic Alliance Western Cape MPLs on Thursday laid charges of bribery and/or corruption against members of the New National Party, including party leader and Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The charges relate to planning permission in exchange for donations to the NNP.
NNP calls charges ‘sewer politics’
Nigeria is to send troops to assist in the peace process in southern Sudan, where Africa’s longest running civil war appears to be on the brink of being resolved, an army spokesperson said on Thursday. Defence authorities have yet to decide whether the troops will be under the auspices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
The installation of ”intelligent road studs”, along a notorious stretch of road in KwaZulu-Natal, has seen accidents drop so dramatically that the province’s transport department has just had them installed on another stretch of highway. The studs have seen fatalities drop from 27 in the seven months prior to the start of installation in October 2002, to one.
Saddam Hussein’s defence team, which has not yet been allowed to enter Iraq, on Thursday again slammed as ”illegal” the Iraqi special tribunal trying the deposed dictator. ”This court is illegal since it was designated by an illegal authority, created by the occupation,” one of the lawyers said.
The death toll from Typhoom Mindulle’s rampage through the Philippines rose to 16 with 17 other people still missing and feared dead, civil defence officials said on Thursday. The typhoon has displaced nearly 180 000 people from 48 towns and three cities and destroyed or damaged more than 6 000 houses.