Nigeria announced on Tuesday that state and presidential polls ushering in a new government to succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo will be held in April next year. The former army general, who came to power in May 1999 to end more than 15 years of military rule, has vowed to organise credible, free and fair elections when his two terms expire in May 2007.
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced defiance on Tuesday as a deadline neared for Iran to halt work the West fears is a step toward building nuclear bombs, and challenged United States President George Bush to a televised debate. ”Peaceful nuclear energy is the right of the Iranian nation,” he told a news conference.
Police helicopters are to be fitted with airborne surveillance systems from Denel, the state-owned arms company said on Tuesday. ”This virtual ‘eye in the sky’ system will allow the South African Police Service to deploy their helicopters for all-weather and day and night crime prevention,” said Sam Basch, Denel’s spokesperson.
Two men and a woman appeared briefly in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on charges of fraud involving about R25-million, the National Prosecuting Authority said. Anton de Bruyn, his wife Debra and Mynderd Jacobus Hendrickz were arrested in the Randfontein area earlier on Tuesday, NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said in a statement.
Nasa moved the Atlantis shuttle off its Florida launch pad on Tuesday to protect it from Tropical Storm Ernesto, a change that threatens plans to lift off this month. The storm began intensifying on Tuesday as it left Haiti, where it killed two people, and Cuba to head over open water toward south Florida.
An undersea earthquake struck near Indonesia’s Moluccas islands on Tuesday but Indonesian officials said it was of moderate strength and there was no risk of a tsunami. The state meteorological agency downgraded its initial estimate of the quake’s magnitude and withdrew a tsunami warning.
Popular band Live will return to South Africa for the third time during their upcoming Black Mountain — White Light tour in October, Big Concerts said on Tuesday. The tour will begin in Johannesburg on October 27 before moving on to Durban on October 28, Port Elizabeth on October 30 and Cape Town on October 31.
A Durban hijacker who shot dead a Pietermaritzburg teacher and wounded his girlfriend was sentenced to life plus 45 years in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Mlandeli Madlala (22) was given a life sentence for the February 2005 murder of Irshad Jogiat, a teacher who was to obtain a law degree at the end of that year.
Mail & Guardian journalists Stefaans Brümmer and Sam Sole, together with former staffer Wisani wa ka Ngobeni, have jointly won the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s John Manyarara Investigative Journalism Award for 2006 for their reports on the Oilgate scandal. The team also won the category for print news at the regional Vodacom Journalist of the Year 2006 awards.
Marches and demonstrations will be held across the country on Friday as striking cleaners attempt to have their pay demands met, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) said on Tuesday. ”The wages in the cleaning industry are pathetic. It is completely unacceptable,” said Satawu general secretary Randall Howard.