Public-service unions officially made a counter-proposal, demanding a 10% wage increase from the government on Friday. ”Unions’ demands remain the same but in order to facilitate the reaching of a settlement the unions have agreed to put on the table a proposal of 10% ..,” Don Pasquallie said on behalf of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Zimbabwean journalists launched a voluntary media council on Friday, hoping to show the government the media can oversee itself and does not need what critics say is increasingly draconian state regulation. President Robert Mugabe’s government introduced tough media laws five years ago.
While the Dutch Reformed Church had decided on a more accommodating approach to gay membership at its national synod meeting in Gauteng this week, it also firmly rejected gay marriage and sex. The synod was clear in its stance that marriage could only be between a man and a woman, newly elected moderator Professor Piet Strauss said on Friday.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the reversal of Thursday’s 50 basis point interest-rate hike. ”Cosatu believes that the South African Reserve Bank’s policy of raising interest rates … is seriously out of step with the needs of a developing economy like South Africa,” the union said in a statement on Friday.
Researchers, scientists and healthcare workers resolved on Friday to open a new front in South Africa’s war on Aids, encouraged by the government’s fresh approach to the crisis and improved weapons to protect those most at risk of infection.
Media reports of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya having ”snubbed” the South African National Aids Conference in Durban are incorrect, the ministry said on Friday. ”The ministry never confirmed the participation of Dr Skweyiya at this conference …,” it said in a statement.
Parishioners of a Johannesburg Roman Catholic church, concerned at a growing shortage of priests, have challenged church authorities to allow priests to marry. The proposal is made in a ”discussion document” compiled by a working group of the pastoral council of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rosebank.
Eleven Zimbabwean opposition supporters who had been detained for two months for an alleged ”terrorism” plot have been released after a court ordered the charges to be dropped, a party spokesperson said on Friday. The 11, which included seven party workers for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had been rounded up in raids in March.
The head of the air force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) grounded domestic flights on Friday when he banned aircraft at Kinshasa’s international airport from refuelling, airport sources said. About 10 planes were affected when General John Numbi sent troops to seal off access to fuel tanks at N’Djili airport, the sources said.
Hundreds of people carrying their possessions in makeshift carts fled on Friday from Kenya’s Mathare slum, where at least 33 people have died in a police crackdown on Kenya’s deadly Mungiki gang. At least 500 police officers tore through the shantytown in Nairobi on Thursday, shooting dead at least 11 people.