Eight people are feared drowned during floods in the Eastern Cape over the weekend, emergency services said on Tuesday. Captain John Fobian said the missing people were from the former Transkei, Queenstown and Grahamstown. Four bodies have been recovered in the province since Monday.
Fast-food chains in South Africa have grown at an average of 12 units yearly, with four new restaurants opening per year. This is according to the results of the Standard Bank Franchise Factor survey to determine the contribution made by the franchise industry to the economy of South Africa.
Nominal house-price growth of 15,4% year-on-year was recorded in February from a revised 15,4% in January, according to the latest Absa house-price index. This brings the average price of a house in the survey to R891 700 in February this year. However, the researchers pointed to growth potentially levelling off again later in the year.
Insurgents attacked the airport in Mogadishu on Tuesday and fought a heavy battle with government and Ethiopian troops as Ugandan peacekeepers arrived in Somalia’s lawless capital. More than a dozen mortar strikes hit near the airport, where about 350 Ugandans were camped after landing earlier on Tuesday.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown, the man at the centre of what could be South Africa’s biggest-ever corporate-investment scandal, is behind bars. He and group accountant Graham Maddock were arrested by the Scorpions at their luxurious Cape Town homes shortly after 8am on Tuesday.
South Africa and Qatar agreed to ”remain engaged” with Iran and other parties in dealing with the nuclear situation in that country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. Qatar, like South Africa, is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged visiting Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Tuesday to keep fighting Israel, state television said. The United States and Israel accuse Iran of ”interference” in Iraq, through backing Shi’ite militias, and of sponsoring terrorism, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah group.
Thousands of cheering Ghanaians waving the red, yellow and green national flag packed a central square in the capital on Tuesday to celebrate the 50th birthday of the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence. Excited crowds of citizens joined invited dignitaries to celebrate the March 6 1957 anniversary of the end of British colonial rule over Ghana.
South African high jumper Jacques Freitag and his training partner, Zeegfriedt Veenemans, will have to attend a diversion programme before charges of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm can be withdrawn against them. The two men appeared in the Hatfield Community Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.
At least 34 people died in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare on Tuesday when a commuter bus crashed into a cargo train at a rail crossing, police said. Several other people were injured in the accident, which left bloodied and disfigured bodies strewn around a large swamp.