Asbestos-relief activists have warned the Limpopo government not to go ahead with plans to develop a township on old asbestos mining fields. The Penge area, near Burgersfort, has been found to be contaminated with asbestos, which causes lung cancer, and unfit for human habitation. But Limpopo’s department of housing has already approved the development of an existing informal settlement into a formal township.
Britain’s military denied newspaper reports on Thursday that it was banning Prince Harry from serving in combat in Iraq, but acknowledged his deployment was under review. Harry, third in line to the throne, is due to head to Iraq with his ”A” Squadron of the Blues and Royals regiment in the coming weeks.
Talks between Uganda’s government and northern rebels to end two decades of civil war resumed on Thursday with a United Nations envoy warning both sides not to let the chance for peace slip through their grasp. Three months ago, the LRA negotiators walked out of the talks after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threatened them.
Ethiopian tanks supporting the Somali government pounded insurgent positions in Mogadishu on Thursday and Somalia’s prime minister declared significant gains after a nine-day offensive. Following the latest attack, Ali Mohamed Gedi said ”most fighting” had ended and allied Somali-Ethiopian troops were clearing ”pockets of resistance”.
Hugh Grant has been arrested and questioned by police after a photographer accused the British actor of attacking him with a tub of baked beans. Photographer Ian Whittaker told the Daily Star tabloid that he and Grant (46) clashed near the home of the Four Weddings and a Funeral star.
An eight-storey building collapsed in Istanbul on Thursday, but authorities said they did not expect a great number of casualties as people ran away when they heard the building start to crack. It was not clear how many people were inside the building in the Sirinevler district on the European side of Istanbul, but most people had left the building before the collapse.
The Witness newspaper on Thursday said it would not hand over the details of a motorist who used his cellphone to provide the newspaper with video footage of KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sbu Ndebele’s convoy doing 160km/h. Witness deputy editor Yves Vanderhaeghen said: ”We have spoken to our lawyers. Our lawyers have advised them that we cannot do this.”
Cape Town’s disaster risk-management centre is on full alert following a severe weather warning from the South African Weather Service on Thursday. All city departments that may be required to respond to flooding, storm damage to infrastructure or disruption of services will maintain adequate standby levels during this period, the council said in a statement.
A Greytown farm worker was convicted of murder on Thursday after telling the Pietermaritzburg High Court that he hacked two woman co-workers to death with an axe last week, robbed them then burnt their bodies. Acting Judge Jerome Mnguni convicted Siphiwe Ndlovu (35) of murder and aggravated robbery.
There are signs that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is mulling a policy shift that could tilt Africa’s booming economic powerhouse to the left after more than a decade on a centrist course. The ANC is under growing pressure from trade-union allies and its own rank-and-file to make income redistribution and nationalisation the lynchpins of its programme.