South Africa and the United Kingdom have agreed to a joint prison-official training programme, the Ministry of Correctional Services said on Wednesday. Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour is in London on a four-day visit to prisons, said the minister’s spokesperson Luphumzo Kebeni in a statement.
Liberia will celebrate its independence anniversary next week with something of a light show when Monrovia’s street lights are turned on for the first time in 15 years, officials said on Wednesday. Officials made the announcement to delegates at a United States-backed investment conference, hoping to underline progress since the election of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in November.
Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed 57 civilians and a Hezbollah fighter on Wednesday, the deadliest toll of the eight-day-old war, as thousands of villagers fled north and more foreigners were evacuated. Hezbollah rockets killed two children in the northern city of Nazareth, medics said. More Hezbollah rockets fell on the city of Haifa and one hit an empty seafront restaurant.
Hot on the heels of the decision to change the name of Johannesburg International airport to OR Tambo International airport comes another major name adjustment: the city council of Potchefstroom in the North West voted on Tuesday night to change the town’s name to Tlokwe.
They belch hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, but South Africa’s coal-fired power stations will remain the major suppliers of the country’s energy needs for years to come, Eskom said on Wednesday. ”We need to be very clear: coal will remain a major, major part of our [energy] supply,” Eskom said.
Former France captain Zinedine Zidane will appear before Fifa’s disciplinary committee in Zurich on Thursday to give his account of the incident in which he headbutted an opponent in the World Cup final. The 34 year old was sent off in the closing stages of the final match of his illustrious career after butting his head into the chest of Italian defender Marco Materazzi.
The Department of Education is not responding to children orphaned by HIV/Aids as well as it could, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Johannesburg on Wednesday. ”My own anecdotal evidence is that we are not responding to orphans as well as we could,” she said.
Somalia’s prime minister accused the lawless nation’s powerful Islamist movement on Wednesday of planning to attack the seat of the weak transitional government, raising already heightened tensions.
The United States is likely to send troops to Lebanon to protect American citizens who are being evacuated there, United States President George Bush said in a letter to Congress on Wednesday. While there are already a small number of US troops in the region to aid in evacuation efforts, the deployment of additional troops is anticipated, Bush wrote in the letter to lawmakers.
Springbok selectors on Wednesday shot down claims by a South African newspaper quoting coach Jake White that flanker Solly Tyibilika was in the squad only because he was black. South African rugby issued a strongly worded statement after remarks by White on Monday were quoted in the Cape Town-based daily the Cape Argus.