Heritage month — which is September — will see the holding of hearings into the causes of deaths at initiation schools. The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities said on Tuesday that this was decided as a matter of urgency at a meeting held to discuss the recent spate of deaths at initiation schools.
South African telecommunications company Telkom said on Tuesday that it will comply fully with the legal requirement prescribing mandatory 10-digit dialling and the replacement of 09 with 00 as the international dialling prefix. This is in line with the minister of communication’s promulgation of a numbering plan prescribed by the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa.
Libya was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb before it decided in 2003 to abandon its programme to produce weapons of mass destruction, leader Moammar Gadaffi said, according to the country’s official news agency. ”Libya was on the point of building a nuclear bomb: that is no longer a secret,” Gadaffi was quoted on Monday as saying.
Somalia’s interim government agreed on Tuesday to attend new peace talks with the country’s powerful Islamists, responding to a United Nations drive to avoid war in the Horn of Africa country. ”We will go to Khartoum without any preconditions,” said Abdirizak Adam, interim President Abdullahi Yusuf’s chief of staff.
Opposition protesters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rampaged down a main highway into Kinshasa on Tuesday, tearing down election posters and demanding the postponement of historic polls scheduled for Sunday. The several hundred demonstrators clashed with riot police who beat them with batons.
The so-called ”Waterkloof Four” will know their fate in November after their sentencing was postponed again in the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday. The four — Christoff Becker, Frikkie du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk and Reinach Tied — were found guilty last year of the apparently racist murder of an unidentified man and the assault of another in 2001.
Israeli forces battled to take over a second Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon on Tuesday in intensifying ground clashes with the guerrillas’ frontier garrison, sources on both sides said. Calling Bint Jbeil ”one of the major Hezbollah centres”, an Israeli military spokesperson said tanks and troops had sealed off the town.
Trade union Solidarity, in a submission to the Competition Tribunal on Tuesday, said it was greatly concerned about the fact that mining company Kumba Resources’ workers were not consulted on the process of unbundling Kumba. Kumba spokesperson Trevor Arran wasn’t immediately available to comment.
Jimmy Connors spent three consecutive years as the World number one, so he has a good idea of what it is going to take for fellow American Andy Roddick to return to that lofty perch. Hall of Famer Connors and Roddick announced on Monday a link-up between the two former World number ones that is designed to end Roddick’s struggles.
Trade union Solidarity on Tuesday announced its decision to join the Confederation of South African Workers’ Unions (Consawu). Consawu, which was founded in March 2003, currently has 23 trade unions as members, of which Solidarity is the largest group. Consawu’s total membership is almost 290 000 members.