Several people were shot and killed by a hostage taker who opened fire at an Amish school in Pennsylvania on Monday, police said, in the third fatal shooting at a United States school in a week. ”There are a number dead. The exact number I am not sure at this point. There are also a number of wounded. And the shooter is not at large,” said Ralph Striebig of the state police.
Iran will not suspend uranium enrichment, as demanded by the West, but is still holding talks about its nuclear programme, the Iranian government spokesperson said on Monday. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she flew to the Middle East that foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany might meet this week to discuss Iran.
A report on the alleged political bias of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been handed over to the public broadcaster’s chief executive, Dali Mpofu, the commission of inquiry said in a statement on Monday. Earlier this year the SABC came under fire for the alleged blacklisting of political analysts too critical of President Thabo Mbeki.
The new Advance Tax Ruling System — intended to promote clarity, consistency and certainty in the interpretation and application of the tax laws — came into effect on Monday. The system allows the commissioner to issue two new types of rulings — binding private rulings and binding general rulings — the South African Revenue Service said in a statement.
One of South Africa’s worst military disasters is to be taught in British schools to highlight the role of African soldiers in World War I, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission announced on Monday. A total of 616 South Africans, virtually all of them African, died when the steamship Mendi sank in the Channel on the way to France on February 21 1917.
A delegation of about 50 Russian business leaders was in Zimbabwe on Monday for talks with senior officials about investment opportunities in the Southern African country. Officials from both countries said that the discussions would include talks about possible mining investments in Zimbabwe, which is rich in minerals such as platinum and uranium.
Up to 40 people were killed in clashes between rebel groups in south Darfur, forcing foreign aid workers to abandon the Greida displaced persons’ camp, the Guardian newspaper reported on its website on Monday. An African Union spokesperson in Khartoum confirmed a flare-up in fighting in Greida, but put the death toll at 11 people, mostly civilians.
Georgia on Monday handed over to international mediators four Russian army officers whose arrest on spying charges triggered the worst crisis in years between the ex-Soviet neighbours. As the handover was going ahead, Moscow ignored international appeals for a similar goodwill gesture and announced it would cut air, sea and land links between the two countries.
South Africa and India will share intelligence to help prevent international terrorism, President Thabo Mbeki said on Monday. He met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Union Buildings in Pretoria where they signed a declaration "reaffirming the strategic partnership" between the two countries.
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”.