Israeli forces thrust into southern Lebanon on Tuesday and pounded towns and villages, meeting fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas who reportedly killed three soldiers. Three weeks after the war erupted when Hezbollah snatched two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel’s security Cabinet agreed to step up its offensive.
The South African justice system needs new legislation to improve how it deals with young offenders, government advocates and United Nations representatives said on Tuesday. Children had the right to be treated as children no matter how vile their actions, Constitutional Court Justice Yvonne Mokgoro told a conference on child justice in Pretoria.
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance is holding simultaneous public events outside five South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) provincial offices as part of its nationwide campaign to highlight what it views as television-news reporting bias. In a statement, spokesperson and MP Donald Lee said on Tuesday: ”The DA will erect posters and distribute stickers outside each provincial SABC office.”
Six more Somali government ministers resigned on Tuesday citing the 18-month-old administration’s "unpopularity" officials said. The resignations of Culture Minister Abdi Hashi Abdullahi, Water and Natural Resources Minister Muhamoud Salat Nur and four assistant ministers brought to 24 the number of ministers who have quit the 102-member Cabinet.
Suspected Islamic militants staged about 40 bomb and arson attacks in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces late on Tuesday, injuring at least one, officials said. The attacks struck government and civilian targets including the homes of local officials and a train station in Thailand’s three restive provinces along the southern border with Malaysia, they said.
Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo said in Abuja on Tuesday that the exploitation and slavery of Africans in past decades were directly linked to Africa’s present economic conditions. Obasanjo said that the distortions and underdevelopment that slavery entailed continued to complicate the processes of growth and development on the African continent.
The state had not filed all its papers at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein on Tuesday in connection with Durban businessman Schabir Shaik’s asset-forfeiture appeal. According to records already filed at the court the state has until August 11 to file its head of argument on the matter.
Duygu Asena, a renowned Turkish journalist and writer who devoted much of her work to promoting women’s rights, has died at the age of 60 after battling a brain tumour for the past two years, the Anatolia news agency reported. She won acclaim with her first novel Kadinin Adi Yok (Woman Has No Name) in 1987.
Municipal managers could soon be forced to sign performance agreements to improve service delivery, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Tuesday. ”Now there will be a direct relation between what managers do and what the community expects of them,” Mufamadi said.
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Fund-raising efforts to ensure that Zuma’s legal fees are paid will be ”doubled”, as more than the previously estimated R12-million may be needed. In a personal affidavit filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, Zuma said he was ”effectively unemployed and quite unemployable”.