The City of Cape Town has launched a high court challenge to the legality of the Erasmus commission, city speaker Dirk Smit announced on Tuesday. The commission was set up by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool last year to probe the city’s own investigation of renegade councillor Badih Chaaban.
South Korea’s first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, blasted off into space on Tuesday, prompting her mother, apparently overwhelmed by the occasion, to scream and fall to the ground. In another historic first, one of her fellow cosmonauts, Sergei Volkov, followed in the footsteps of his father, celebrated cosmonaut Alexander Volkov.
A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said on Tuesday. The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces.
Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened on Tuesday to end a truce he imposed on his militia last year, raising the prospect of worsening violence in Iraq just hours before top US officials testified on Iraq in Washington. Al-Sadr urged his Mehdi Army to ”continue your jihad and resistance” against US forces.
Kenya’s opposition suspended talks with President Mwai Kibaki’s party on Tuesday and police fired tear gas to scatter opposition supporters protesting at deepening deadlock over a power-sharing Cabinet. Kibaki and rival Raila Odinga delayed naming the new Cabinet on Monday after disagreeing over how to share out ministries.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have demanded that the Zimbabwean presidential election results be announced. The two trade-union federations met in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
One of the alleged masterminds in the Fidentia scandal was arrested by the FBI in the United States, the National Prosecuting Authority said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Tlali Tlali said Steven William Goodwin was arrested following a request by the Directorate of Special Operations, better known as the Scorpions.
The Democratic Alliance and trade union Solidarity want Eskom to release a full, unedited report of its application for a 53% tariff increase, they said on Tuesday. The application was due to have been published at noon on Tuesday on the website of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
Gerhard Zandberg’s South African swimming contingent was caught up in the chaos at Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow airport in London, which caused the swimmers to miss their connection flight to Manchester. The terminal opened recently only to descend into disorder as its baggage-handling system broke down.
The United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday unveiled a new partnership with internet giant Google to help track refugees from Iraq to Darfur and raise public awareness of its work. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees launched its new service using the ”Google Earth Outreach” programme.