Police in Limpopo often assault and extort money from Zimbabwean migrants and fail to verify their identity or legal status before deporting them, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday. HRW released a report that it says ”documents how state officials arrest, detain and deport undocumented foreign migrants in ways that flout South Africa’s immigration law.”
The women’s march to the Union Buildings on August 9 1956 was critical in achieving democracy in South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Tuesday. ”Cosatu pays tribute to those 20Â 000 women who protested at the extension of pass laws to women, and to the millions of women who have followed in their footsteps,” said Cosatu in a statement.
Swirling floodwaters inundated several towns and cities in western and southern India on Tuesday as the military deployed helicopters and boats to help hundreds of thousands of marooned people. Nearly 200 people have been killed in flooding due to incessant rains over the past week in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Chad’s President Idriss Déby Itno and his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir on Tuesday decided to immediately reopen their common border and respective embassies, a high-ranking Chad official said. The leaders also said they were committed ”to working to reinforce peace between the two countries”, the official added.
Members of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) employed by the Shoprite Group are to embark on a national strike on Thursday after wage talks ended in a deadlock on Monday. The union has also called for a boycott of stores within the Shoprite fold of companies.
Peace talks to end northern Uganda’s brutal two-decade war hung in the balance on Tuesday as the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) refused to return to the table unless the government declares a truce. The halting negotiations had been due to resume on Tuesday following the LRA’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire last week.
Disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis said on Tuesday his positive drugs test was fatally flawed as he continued his media campaign to prove his innocence. The American rider tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone after his remarkable comeback stage-17 victory but claims the test was not carried out correctly.
The aircraft that carried former national cricket captain Hansie Cronje to his doom had incomplete maintenance records, an inquest into the crash heard on Tuesday. A Civil Aviation Authority senior accident investigator confirmed that Airquarius Aviation subcontracted its aircraft maintenance work.
Inspectors from South Africa’s Department of Labour carried out "blitzes" in the Free State province this week but the vast majority of workplaces targeted were found to be compliant with the country’s employment equity laws, a spokesperson for Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Tuesday.
South Africa has been asked to use its political influence internationally to help end the conflict in Lebanon, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. He said at a media briefing in Pretoria that President Thabo Mbeki had received a letter from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora asking the government to intervene politically and help with humanitarian aid.