The United Nations children’s agency and Nordic truce monitors on Tuesday rejected Sri Lankan claims that dozens of children killed in an air force bombing raid were child soldiers. A team from the UN children’s fund visited the bombed site and said they had found no evidence to support claims the rebels had been using the facility as a military training centre.
Michael MacDonald, professor of political science at Williams College in the United States, was in South Africa recently to launch his book <i>Why Race Matters in South Africa</i>. He talked to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
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The South African Congress of Trade Unions (Cosatu) has admitted it cannot ”produce conclusive proof of a conspiracy” within the National Prosecuting Authority against former deputy president Jacob Zuma. On Tuesday Cosatu’s national spokesperson Patrick Craven said: ”The kind of proof that would have names dates, places [of meetings] … that’s what we can’t produce. But the evidence is all there.”
The presidents of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique will on Wednesday open a new border crossing to link a giant transnational game park. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki will join Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and Mozambican President Armando Guebuza to "officially open the Giriyondo border post in Limpopo", the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.
Bookmakers have dubbed David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green as the favourite among 19 novels to be longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize on Monday. Mitchell, shortlisted for the literature award in 2004, is joined on the list by three former winners, including South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.
The Addo Elephant National Park is set to become the third-largest national park in the country, according to South African National Parks. The park’s new southern access road was officially opened by the minister of environmental affairs and tourism on Tuesday, coinciding with the park’s 75th-anniversary celebrations.
The City of Cape Town will take new safety precautions after a shark attack on a 24-year-old lifeguard, a city councillor said on Tuesday. Councillor Marian Niewoudt, mayoral committee member for planning and environment, said the city had been working with Marine Coastal Management and other specialists since May on measures to curb shark attacks.
The Phonak cycling team will disband at the end of the year, team owner Andy Rihs announced Tuesday, ten days after team leader Floyd Landis was sacked because of the Tour de France doping scandal. Rihs said the Landis affair had been the deciding factor. ”As a passionate cyclist, I am bitterly disappointed that the sport of cycling apparently has become a synonym for doping,” he said.
A probe by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa into the recent power outages in the Western Cape has found electricity provider Eskom guilty of transgressing its licensing conditions as well as negligence. As a consequence, the regulator said it will impose punitive sanctions against Eskom.
A Pretoria judge has ruled that a top military spy — fired for reasons so classified not even he knows why — must get his job back, the Pretoria News reported on Tuesday. Colonel GJM Badenhorst was the head of covert information for West Africa in defence intelligence when he was fired in 2004.