The Pretoria High Court will rule on Monday on the urgency of an application for it to declare the arrest, detention and removal from South Africa of a Pakistani national unlawful. Attorney Zehir Omar asked on Thursday that the arrest, detention and removal of Khalid Mahmood Rashid be declared unlawful.
Johannesburg police undertook on Thursday to probe claims of a delayed police response at the crime scene of Cape Town journalist Megan Herselman, who was killed on Tuesday night at the Rivonia offramp on the N1 north. She had arrived from Cape Town that evening and lost her way between Johannesburg International airport and Midrand.
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Ecuador beat Costa Rica 3-0 on Thursday to clinch qualification for the second phase of the World Cup for the first time in their history. The result means that Ecuador only need to draw with host nation Germany next Tuesday to win Group A by virtue of a superior goal difference, meaning they would avoid England if Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side win Group B.
The South African government has urged Israel to act with the utmost self-restraint in ensuring the legitimate defence and security of its own people. ”The South African government wishes to express its concern at the continuing Israeli military actions in the occupied territories,” the Department of Foreign affairs said in a statement on Thursday.
The Kyoto Protocol will cut the developing world’s greenhouse-gas emissions — implicated in runaway global warming — by at least one billion tonnes by the end of 2012, according to the United Nations. Projects planned under the Clean Development Mechanism have reached the one-billion milestone.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has welcomed the plea-bargain agreement entered into by a travel operator with the directorate of special operations. The NPA it said that travel operator Shamima Lamalia had entered into a plea-bargain agreement on Thursday. The case relates to Parliament’s travel fraud, which has been dubbed ”Travelgate”.
It was unclear on Thursday what the condition was of Elita, wife of hospitalised former president FW de Klerk, a family spokesperson said. He confirmed that Elita had been admitted to Cape Town’s Panaroma medi-clinic, which is also treating her husband, on Wednesday evening after she developed a stress-induced allergic reaction.
Striking security guards — members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) — were forced to call off their march to Sandton on Thursday. Their leaders told them to disperse after police fired stun grenades at them in central Johannesburg, injuring guards in the process.
Washington has been playing with fire in Somalia, where its support for a warlord alliance has ended up boosting Islamic militias, which now hold the capital Mogadishu, analysts say. Somalia has been torn by four months of fighting between the Islamists and an alliance of warlords, who largely controlled the lawless state for 15 years.
Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood movement on Thursday criticised Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas for his decision to hold a referendum on a proposal which calls for recognition of Israel. ”The effort to circumvent legitimate routes by imposing a document presented by certain detainees will only serve the Zionist enemy,” the group’s supreme guide Mohammed Mehdi Akef said.