Major changes to the management of the awaiting-trial detention system are on the cards, Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour said on Tuesday. Speaking during debate on his budget vote in the National Assembly, Balfour said this remained one of the key challenges facing the criminal-justice system.
The Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday authorised a warrant for the arrest of British tourist Anthony Cooper, who allegedly started a massive fire on Table Mountain during last-year’s festive season. He is also charged with drunken driving and failed to appear in court on that charge on Tuesday.
Kimi Raikkonen is pinning his hopes of launching a belated assault on this year’s drivers’ world championship on securing a second emotional triumph on the world’s most-famous street circuit in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix. The 26-year-old Finn has endured a near-disastrous start to the 2006 season.
Montenegro’s independence could open a Pandora’s box for other separatist movements in Europe and the former Soviet Union, with some already claiming the right to follow the same path. Separatists in Spain’s Basque and Catalan regions were among the first to welcome Montenegro’s independence vote as a positive omen.
Fresh insurgent attacks across Afghanistan have claimed nearly 20 more lives, including three police officers and 12 Taliban fighters, officials said on Tuesday. About 300 people have already died in recent days in some of the heaviest fighting since the radical Islamic Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001.
Another man thrown out of a moving train in Johannesburg has died, bringing the number of deaths within the past 24 hours to two, police said on Tuesday. About 20 people have been thrown from moving trains in Gauteng in the past few months — many of them working security guards believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues.
The Turkish army confirmed on Tuesday that a Turkish F-16 fighter jet and a Greek F-16 fighter jet had collided over the eastern Aegean Sea after what it said was an attempt by Greek warplanes to intercept Turkish jets. The Turkish pilot ejected and survived the crash, a statement by the general staff said.
A dissident Iranian journalist, Akbar Ganji, and a lawyer and broadcaster in Zimbabwe, Arnold Tsunga, will share a leading international human rights award this year. The award is presented every year by 11 of the world’s major human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Johannesburg metropolitan police officers will stop at nothing to have their grievances heard by city manager Mavela Dlamini, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union said on Tuesday. Metro police officers marched from Beyers Naude Square to the metro centre on Tuesday, causing some of the inner-city streets to be closed to traffic.
Egypt’s interior ministry said on Tuesday the Egyptian group which carried out three simultaneous suicide bombings in the Sinai last month received support from Palestinian militants in Gaza and Egypt. Several members of the Tawhid wal Jihad group blamed for the bombings went to the Gaza Strip for training, it said in a statement.