The Mozambican government has made an urgent appeal to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help more than 60 000 people left destitute when Cyclone Jokwe hit northern and central parts of the country. The WFP said in a statement it would begin distributing food to needy communities early next week.
The world’s most expensive champagne, popping the records at €4 166 (about R53 500) for a personalised bottle of bubbly, goes on sale on Thursday targeting a ”super-rich” global elite. The limited-edition, 12-bottle box sets of Perrier-Jouet champagne will be priced at €50 000.
A triumphant Heather Mills said on Monday she had secured the future for herself and her daughter with a court awarding her a £24,3-million (about R398,5-million) settlement in her divorce from former Beatle Paul McCartney. ”I’m so, so happy with this,” Mills said at an impromptu news conference.
The current global economic turmoil is unlikely to ”impoverish” South Africa and there is some good in the weaker rand, according to First National Bank chief economist Cees Bruggemans. Commenting on the falling rand on Monday, Bruggemans said the good news is that it is the shock absorber of the moment.
At least 20 houses were burnt down and two people shot in clashes between two northern KwaZulu-Natal communities, police said on Monday. Captain Charmaine Struwig said fighting broke out between groups from the Mhlwazini area and Magangangozi area at midday on Sunday.
Workers are entitled to be paid for only one of the public holidays that will be celebrated this Friday, not both, the director of a local law firm said. According to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, they are only entitled to compensation for one day’s work, and not for both Human Rights Day and Good Friday.
The state has called for a life sentence for an 18-year-old Eastern Cape youth convicted of raping a 14-year-old mentally ill girl and raping and murdering a girl of 10. Appearing in the Grahamstown High Court on Monday before Judge Cecil Somyalo was Lunga Tata, of Tyoksville, Bathurst.
Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa on Monday criticised the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for claiming that President Thabo Mbeki had not been an ”honest broker”. He was briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs ahead of his country’s ”harmonised” March 29 elections.
The African National Congress (ANC) wants its new deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, in government, ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe said on Monday. There has been much speculation on whether the ANC’s new leadership would want one of its own present in President Thabo Mbeki’s government.
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya on Monday released a discussion document that could see the current means test for social-grant eligibility overhauled. ”It is the view of the department that the means tests are outdated and consequently exclude many poor people from the safety net,” Skweyiya said.