The JSE was deluged with red just before noon on Tuesday, knocked by the double whammy of weaker world markets and lower commodity prices. A related sell-off in heavyweight resources stocks in London exacerbated the bourse’s woes. By 11.57am, the-all share index tumbled 2,14%.
About 1 000 people in trucks and on motorcycles converged outside the offices of unpopular East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri on Tuesday to demand his resignation. More than 40 trucks carrying about 20 people each plus hundreds more on motorcycles reached the government offices on the Dili waterfront.
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An estimated 400Â 000 prostitutes work in Germany, about 250Â 000 of whom are probably foreigners. Many were brought into the country by human traffickers from Ukraine, Bulgaria and Russia. Experts believe that between 70Â 000 and 120Â 000 women are transported to Germany for prostitution each year.
The lawless Somali capital fractured along clan lines on Tuesday as members of a United States-backed warlord alliance sought refuge with traditional elders and vowed to resist Islamist control. A day after Mogadishu’s 11 Islamic courts claimed victory over the warlords in four months of fierce fighting, surrender talks were at a stalemate and the city appeared deeply divided.
The Times newspaper, aiming to increase its online audience by supplying video news clips, said on Tuesday it planned to launch an internet television service this week. Third-party providers will initially provide news clips for the new service, Times TV, which plans in the longer term to encourage its readers to contribute newsworthy videos, the British daily said.
United States President George Bush declared his backing for a ban on gay marriage on Monday in what sceptics said was part of a broad campaign to win back disillusioned conservatives and divert attention from the Iraq war. With five months to go before congressional elections, Bush and his party have slumped in the polls and have been pummelled by the flow of bad news from Iraq.
The Pentagon is drafting a new rulebook for military interrogators which omits the Geneva convention ban on ”humiliating and degrading treatment”, it was reported on Monday. According to the Los Angeles Times, the army field manual on interrogation has not been finalised, and state department lawyers are fighting to have the convention protections restored.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was expected to call a snap referendum on Tuesday on a statehood plan that implicitly recognises Israel, despite the protests of the Hamas-led government. The move comes after last-minute talks failed to clinch an agreement between his Fatah party and the hard-line Hamas on how to solve a deepening political and financial crisis.
Wage increases for employees in South Africa’s metals and engineering industries have been finalised weeks ahead of the expiry of the current agreement on June 30, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) said in on Tuesday.
A major wrestling match in the United States’ Congress over control of the internet features some strange alliances — rockers and evangelists vs phone companies and the Bells’ usually biggest adversary, cable TV companies. The most far-reaching telecommunications Bill in a decade has as its main purpose making it easier for phone companies to compete against cable companies in offering the equivalent of cable TV.