Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in Paris for a medical examination on Thursday, five months after undergoing stomach surgery in the French capital, French and Algerian officials said. Algerian officials said 69-year-old Bouteflika, who was operated on for a bleeding stomach ulcer at a Paris military hospital last November, was in the country for a routine consultation.
It is time for politicians and security-force officers to face the music for their role in apartheid-era human rights violations, a Cape Town conference heard on Thursday. Former Truth and Reconciliation Commission member Yasmin Sooka said she would like to see ”those who created this milieu” brought to book.
British charity Oxfam International on Thursday launched its biggest food-crisis aid appeal to date, asking for more than -million to save millions in drought-hit East Africa. The appeal for the funds, the organisation’s largest single call for donations to avert a food crisis in its 60-year history, came as the United Nations warned that recent rains across the region were not enough to alleviate suffering.
The Competition Commission will hold a public inquiry into bank charges and access to the payment system, it said on Thursday. It was releasing a research report into the national payment system (NPS) and competition in the banking sector. The NPS is the accounting and transaction system between banks and other financial institutions.
A major breakthrough in the fight against the HIV/Aids epidemic may be likely as research into a revolutionary new type of technology, known as microbicides, gains momentum. Professor Helen Rees of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand said in a statement to the media that microbicides are crucial in reducing the spread of HIV/Aids.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has turned down an invitation to be part of the South African delegation at next month’s special United Nations session on HIV/Aids. TAC general secretary Sipho Mthathi said the process of selecting and announcing the delegation had been unsatisfactory.
World oil prices reached new peaks on Thursday, above in London and in New York owing to low stocks of gasoline in the United States and tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for June delivery struck a record high of ,22 per barrel. New York’s benchmark contract for light sweet crude for May delivery hit an all-time peak of ,49.
The situation in eastern Chad, a region plagued by rebel incursions and refugee crises, has taken a dramatic turn for the worse as a rebellion against President Idriss Déby Itno gathers force, aid workers say. Rebels from the United Front for Change (FUC) left their base in the east last week and three days later launched their biggest offensive yet on N’djamena.
South Africa has seen a ”phenomenal increase” in the number of asylum seekers in the past few years, the Department of Home Affairs said on Thursday. Although there are only 29 000 people with refugee status living in the country, there are 103 410 outstanding asylum applications.
Most new taxis did not fully comply with safety requirements published last year, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe said on Thursday. However, most ”can be said to substantially meet the basic requirements”, he told an Eastern Cape transport conference in East London.