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Former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma dismissed suggestions on Tuesday that President Thabo Mbeki had played a part in his rape trial and upcoming corruption trial. ”No, I have not said anything in that direction. I would not want to discuss that matter,” he told the Cape Talk 567 radio station on Tuesday afternoon.
A Mozambican national spent more than a year awaiting trial for rape and attempted murder in South Africa, while forensic evidence clearing him had been available four months after his arrest. Charges of rape and attempted murder were withdrawn against Lui Emmanuel Sipoge in the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday.
Japan will have to adjust its eating habits with the implementation of a 50% price increase on disposable chopsticks imposed by Chinese suppliers before exports cease altogether, a media report said on Tuesday. In March, China’s government imposed a ban on the disposable eating utensils as a measure to protect forests.
About 2,7-million individual tax payers will be able to submit their tax returns through the internet for the first time in South Africa this year. ”It takes out a lot of the hassle factor,” Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday. The new service will be available from June 1.
South Africa’s Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour has reported figures indicating that the number of prisoner escapes from correctional facilities has been on a downward trend in the post-apartheid period. Just 120 prisoners escaped in 2005 and 30 escaped in the first three months of this year.
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South African former deputy president Jacob Zuma apologised to the nation on Tuesday for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman, a day after he was acquitted of rape. ”I should have been more cautious and more responsible,” said Zuma in an interview to SABC radio. ”I erred on this issue and on this, I apologise.”
The retrial is due to start on Thursday in Tripoli of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been held in jail since 1999 on charges of infecting Libyan children with HIV/Aids. Since death sentences against the defendants were quashed on Christmas Day, relations been Tripoli and Sofia have been strained by the publication in Bulgaria of cartoons of Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi.
Nearly 30 years after the birth of the world’s first test-tube baby, Kenya on Tuesday celebrated the deliveries of the first children conceived through in-vitro fertilisation in the country. The two baby girls were born to two mothers, aged 30 and 35, at a private hospital in the capital on Monday.
The peer review system established under the African Union cracks the mould of continental politics. For the first time, African leaders agreed to submit governance to internal and external checks and balances. Recently South Africa tabled its first self-assessment report at a meeting in Kliptown — the venue at which the Freedom Charter was drawn up.
The JSE was slightly higher in noon trade on Tuesday, with stocks such as gold counters bouncing after being sold off in late Monday trade. The market remained nervous, however, which made for light volumes. By 11.59am, the all-share index was up 0,24%. Resources rose 0,29%, the gold-mining index rebounded 1,07% and the platinum-mining index climbed 0,86%.