Whip out your winter woollies, put on thick socks and boots and stock up on firewood — it is going to be cold and wet in the entire country this week. The South African Weather Service said on Tuesday a strong cold front was moving in over the interior with snow already being reported in the Western Cape.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will press for an unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon at an emergency meeting in Malaysia this week, the Malaysian foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the current chairperson of the OIC, called for the August 3 meeting after weeks of military aggression by Israel against Lebanon.
A new United States magazine is targeting a constantly shifting, often ignored group of Americans who have been among those most affected by the ”war on terror” — more than two-thirds of a million children whose parents are in the armed services and who call themselves ”military brats”.
The biggest population of foreign nationals engaged in crime in South Africa hailed from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told journalists on Tuesday. He also said the violent nature of crime in the country is to be investigated as part of a revamped crime-fighting plan.
Somalia’s president told residents of the only town his government controls on Tuesday that they have a week to give up their weapons, after which ”every single gun in Baidoa” will be seized by force. It was unclear how President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose government has no military, will make good on the threat to disarm Baidoa.
There was panic in Zimbabwe on Monday as people rushed to deposit old bearer cheques to beat a deadline set by the central bank, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported. Its website said some people arrived with trunks full of bearer cheques at banks ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to freely deposit a maximum of Z-million.
Zodwa Phiri witnesses young South Africans being educated every day. But Zodwa may never witness the education of her own children. This is because, as a cleaner for the University of Johannesburg, Zodwa earns R8,57 an hour and a meagre R1Â 300 a month.
Watch your back in South Africa. They kill folks here. Murder them at a bewildering rate. Robbers kill their victims, bystanders kill criminals, and family members kill each other. Gun battles erupt on streets or in shopping malls. Passers-by whip out pistols and join in firefights between criminals and police or security guards.
Some of the testosterone found in Tour de France winner Floyd Landis’s ”A” sample is from an external source and not his body’s, The New York Times said on Tuesday quoting an unidentified International Cycling Union official. The carbon-isotope test on the first of Landis’s two urine samples contains synthetic testosterone, said the official.
Opposition parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have denounced parliamentary elections held on Sunday as ”fraudulent” while international observers have given the polls a cautious thumbs-up, according to news reports on Tuesday.