The JSE was in negative territory in noon trade on Tuesday with a recovery in the rand sparking profit taking in stocks that benefited from the currency’s weakness in recent days. Banks, which were hit hard by concerns about the interest rate implications of the rand’s weakness, led the market’s upside.
South Africa’s Department of Health was "not considering" paying compensation to the families of four deceased children who died at the Cecilia Makiwane hospital in East London recently, as it was "not a deliberate action or a result of negligence", said Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week.
At least five people were killed on the edge of the Somali capital early on Tuesday when Islamic gunmen attacked positions held by fighters loyal to a warlord. In addition to the deaths, at least six people were wounded in the battles, the first clashes around the city since Islamists seized control of Mogadishu earlier this month from a United States-backed warlord alliance.
The court appearance of the 11 men arrested after a bloody shoot-out with police in Jeppestown on Sunday has been brought forward to Tuesday, Gauteng police said. The men were initially scheduled to appear in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, but the date was changed around 9am on Tuesday, said police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
Hard-line Muslims in southern India have launched a campaign to dissuade youths from watching too much World Cup action, saying they had "gone mad" over football. "Wherever you go, you see [youths] wearing jerseys of various teams. It’s like idol worship, which our religion doesn’t promote in any form," said Sattar Pathallur, secretary of the Sunni Students Federation.
After the SABC banned an Afrikaans loveLife advert in 2002 because it featured Pieter-Dirk Uys using the word <i>naai</i> (fuck), an unexpected visitor turned up in the West Coast town of Darling. Said Uys: "The window of the car rolled down — it was Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane on his way to a congregation on the West Coast."
Fatty hamburgers, sugar-laden sodas and a couch-potato lifestyle: these are the familiar villains in the crisis of obesity sweeping developed countries. But what if they had been convicted without fair trial? What if the global fat explosion had other causes?
Visions dawned on Monday of a new golden age of philanthropy with Bill Gates atop a mammoth $60-billion charity machine, with a global punch to rival world aid bodies and even governments. Investment guru Warren Buffett’s $31-billion donation to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will double the size of Gates’ fund and make it by far the world’s largest charitable foundation.
Another circumcision initiate has died in the town of Port Shepstone, bringing death toll to seven in two weeks since the start of the mid-year initiation season, the Eastern Cape health department said on Tuesday. Another boy, from Ngqeleni near Mthatha, faces possible amputation.
Bombs killed at least 40 people at markets in two Iraqi cities, hours after key lawmakers said seven Sunni Arab insurgent groups offered the government a conditional truce. Meanwhile, a top Iraqi commander said Baghdad’s forces would not be ready to keep the peace for at least a year in Anbar province, the insurgent heartland.