Foreigners will no longer need to apply for transit visas for South Africa, the Department of Home Affairs announced on Thursday. Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said in a statement that she will commission a study into international best practice relating to transit visas.
The world-famous Comrades Marathon will no longer be run on Youth Day, Athletics South Africa (ASA) announced on Thursday. The race will be held on Sunday June 17 next year and on Sunday June 15 the following year. In 2009, it will be held on Sunday June 14, ASA president Leonard Chuene said.
As the 2006 Soccer World Cup draws to a close in Germany, the eyes of the world will focus on South Africa to see if it is ready to host the next one, says the Cabinet. Meanwhile, a business plan for Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium shows a ”positive outlook” for the long-term viability of the project.
The Little Falls Christian Centre, west of Johannesburg, was awash with tears at Thursday’s memorial for the four police officers killed in a shootout with alleged robbers in Jeppestown. Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu broke down as she took the podium.
A baby was critically injured when her father tried to attack her mother with an axe at Naboomspruit on Thursday, Limpopo police said. The baby was rushed to Mokopane hospital and later transferred to Polokwane hospital in a critical condition, said Captain Gabashane Moseki.
Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territories is drawing fierce accusations in neighbouring Egypt that the Jewish state is seeking to destabilise the region. While Egypt’s diplomacy has remained mum since the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip triggered a military operation, Cairo newspapers are lashing out at Israel.
Remains of eight Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres killed and buried in Mafikeng cemetery during the apartheid era will be exhumed from Monday, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. NPA spokesperson Lucinda Moonieya said the exhumations are in line with the NPA’s investigations ”into crimes of the past”.
The Romanian Senate has opened an inquiry into ”indications” that floods that have battered the country were the result of a ”meteorological war waged by a foreign power”, a senator said Thursday. ”We are planning to check indications … that the extreme meteorological phenomena were caused by human technology controlled from abroad,” Dan Carlan said.
Most recent robberies in Gauteng were carried out by foreigners, South African police union president Mpho Kwinika said on Thursday. He was speaking at a memorial service for four slain police offices held at the Littlefalls Christian centre in Roodepoort. ”The first invasions in Gauteng took place in 2003 on a highway in Germiston. A gang of 14 men tried to rob a cash van … eight of them were foreigners.”
Powerful Islamists on Thursday announced an expansion of their control across Somalia, despite signing a recognition deal with the powerless transitional government aimed at maintaining a lull in the lawless African nation, officials said. In addition, they changed their name from Council of Islamic Courts to Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, which will rule the Horn of Africa nation