Zambian opposition challenger Michael Sata conceded defeat on Monday as official results in the country’s tightly fought presidential election gave incumbent Levy Mwanawasa an unassailable lead. But he said Mwanawasa had ”stolen victory” and urged his supporters who staged violent protests on Sunday to remain calm. Sata said he expected his tally to be at most 900Â 000 votes.
The Director General in President Thabo Mbeki’s office, Reverend Frank Chikane, says he now knows the identity of police officers who poisoned him in the late 1980s. In a statement from the Presidency on Monday, it noted that Chikane, a former general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, had revealed on Sunday ”that he now has information about his poisoning”.
The high rate of credit extension in South Africa had become a major concern for the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the bank’s Governor Tito Mboweni said on Monday while addressing trainee chartered accountants in the Western Cape. "Consumer spending through credit-card lending has recorded year-on-year growth of 38,6% to a level of R36,9-billion at the end of July 2006.
An intruder armed with a knife was arrested after scaling a wall and getting into a secure area of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official London residence, police said on Monday. The man was apprehended after he scaled a fence from a road at the back of 10 Downing Street into what officials describe as the building’s outer secure area.
South African house prices grew by their slowest pace in almost four years in the year to September, weighed down by higher interest rates and rising inflation, lender Standard Bank said on Monday. Housing prices in Africa’s biggest economy have tapered off over the past year, possibly signalling the end to an extended property boom.
Zimbabwe’s external debt fell by 2,3% after the Southern African country paid a total of -million to the International Monetary Fund last year, the central bank said on Monday. ”Zimbabwe’s total debt disbursed and outstanding [including arrears] is estimated to have declined from  071-million in 2004 to  978-million in December 2005,” the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said.
A senior advocate with the crime-busting Scorpions unit broke down in the Randburg Regional Court on Monday when she heard she would have to remain in Johannesburg prison. Fearing victimisation, Portia Kgantsi (39) appeared shaken when she heard she would have to wait another seven days for her bail application.
Voluntary testing among prison inmates and correctional services employees was encouraged at the launch of the Department of Correctional Services’ HIV/syphilis-prevalence survey in Pretoria on Monday. Offenders and officials need to know their status because the current 5% of known HIV cases among inmates is most probably incorrect, considering the country’s HIV rate, the department said.
The African Union needs increased United Nations support if it is to continue its peacekeeping operation in Darfur, European Commission aid chief Louis Michel said on Monday. ”In the current situation, the AU cannot assume completely the job if it does not have an important contribution from the UN.,” Michel told reporters at the AU headquarters.
Parts of the Western Cape can expect heavy rain and snow on Monday, Weather SA warned on Monday. ”Heavy falls of rain are possible in the Overberg, Breede River Valley, Ruens, Garden Route and the Little Karoo,” said Weather SA. ”Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected on the high-ground areas of the Western Cape province and western parts of the Northern Cape province.”