Zimbabwe’s finance minister has denied claims that he violated Zimbabwe’s currency laws when buying a seaside mansion in Cape Town, countering allegations in South Africa media that the real estate deal was illegal, a government newspaper reported on Thursday. Reports of the minister’s property have been the talk of Harare’s business and social circuit.
Dutch authorities on Thursday cleared Amsterdam’s central train station and the station in Roosendaal near the border with Belgium after receiving two bomb alerts, a spokesperson for the Dutch railways said. All train traffic to and from Amsterdam was halted.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33168">Terrorist plan to attack Milan revealed</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33154">Fear of attacks on French railways</a>
To the extent that the ANC will continue to dominate South African politics in the foreseeable future, there has not been any electoral contest since 1994. Predictably and understandably, this raises the ire of opposition parties. After all, they don’t want to be seen to be cheering the ANC by conceding this point. But without realising it, they are propping up the ANC in power.
He’s a proven bestseller, one of the few who can compete with the JK Rowlings of the literary world. And on Wednesday, his publishers announced that his latest, long-awaited book will be out in May. Heaven knows how Pope John Paul II found the time to churn out his 200-page memoir, or how the frail 84-year-old summoned the energy.
One of the world’s greatest rivers has been reduced to a trickle in places by a series of giant Chinese dams and engineering works which are threatening the livelihoods of up to 100-million people in south-east Asia.
About one in three people around the world are not getting enough vitamins and minerals, lowering the IQ of nations, contributing to the death of one-million children a year and leading to mental impairment in 20-million babies, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.
South African parastatals and their employees will be required to contribute to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) from April 1, the Labour Department said on Thursday. Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said that only public service workers would be exempted from contributing to the UIF.
Police, security and intelligence agencies across Europe will have authority to hold and exchange data on individuals — and detain them — under a draft declaration on combating terrorism to be agreed by EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
A United States military lawyer representing a detainee at Guantanamo Bay said on Wednesday that his client could not receive justice under the existing system of military commissions. ”The system is not set up to provide even the appearance of a fair trial,” said Major Michael Mori, who was appointed by the Pentagon to defend the Australian detainee David Hicks.
Fear that the French rail network has become a target for terrorists was raised again on Wednesday night after a track worker found an explosive device half-buried on the main line from Paris to Basle in Switzerland.