Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana was considering resuming public wage negotiations in the troubled security sector, provided no harm came to officials, the Department of Labour said on Thursday. ”I am tempted to allow my officials to go ahead with the hearings in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act,” Mdladlana said from Cape Town.
Cellphone operator Vodacom criticised draft interception legislation on Thursday for placing an onerous and expensive burden on the industry and clients. ”This proposed Act needs more careful thought in terms of its unintended consequences before becoming law,” Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig said in a statement.
The JSE was deep in the red in noon trade on Thursday as the sell-off that has characterized the market over the past two weeks continued. Dealers said that foreigners appeared to be offloading local stocks in a move linked to the change in emerging-market sentiment.
At least seven people were killed and 14 wounded on Thursday as clashes between radical Islamic forces and a United States-backed warlord alliance flared in the lawless Somalia capital, residents said. The two sides pounded each other with heavy machine guns, rockets, artillery and mortar fire in four residential districts in southern and northern Mogadishu.
The Wellington Hurricanes have sounded the battle cry ”Get McCaw” as they set their plan to target the All Blacks captain in the Super 14 rugby final against the Canterbury Crusaders at Jade Stadium in Christchurch on Saturday. The Crusaders have played in seven of the past eight finals, and won five of them.
Afghan troops, backed by coalition planes and artillery, battled a strong force of Taliban insurgents overnight and early on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, already reeling from some of the heaviest fighting in years. New fighting erupted late on Wednesday in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, a coalition spokesperson said.
Police increased security at Istanbul’s Atatürk International airport on Thursday as authorities and companies began to assess the huge damages caused by a raging fire and tried to determine what caused it. A hard-line Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility in an e-mail to a pro-Kurdish news agency.
A small earthquake caused panic in Stockholm on Wednesday night when inhabitants mistook a loud bang for an explosion, police said. Hundreds of Stockholm residents alerted police and abandoned their homes when they heard the noise, fearing a bomb had gone off.
Zimbabwe has poured cold water on the idea of the United Nations helping to solve its economic and political problems, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. ”I am unaware of any UN intervention on Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is not a UN issue,” Secretary for Information and Publicity George Charamba told the paper.
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David Beckham is no longer England’s main man. The 31-year-old midfielder — known as much for his glamorous lifestyle, fashion sense and tattoos as for his bending free kicks — has been eclipsed as England’s key player. Wayne Rooney, still recovering from a broken foot, is the player England’s opponents fear most.