The United States Senate on Friday confirmed air force General Michael Hayden as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which has been in turmoil over intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 attacks and the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The Hamas government on Friday recalled a controversial paramilitary force from the streets of Gaza on the second day of cross-party talks to resolve deadly Palestinian feuding. The move came one day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to call a referendum to end the deadly rivalry between Hamas and his former ruling Fatah party.
Hundreds of Somalis packed mattresses and food into minivans and trucks, preparing to flee their capital a day after it suffered some of the fiercest battles in 14 days. Doctors reached by telephone in the city’s hospitals and clinics raised the death toll from Thursday’s fighting to 60, with more than 150 wounded.
There is no reason why the recent volatility in the stock exchange, the gold price, the value of the rand and the bond market should negatively affect South Africa, said President Thabo Mbeki. Since early May, the rand has lost 8% or 9% of its value and the JSE has lost a similar amount, he said in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website.
The Pretoria High Court on Friday turned down an application by 15 refugees to set aside a refusal by the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority not to register them as security guards. Their registration was earlier refused on the grounds that they were neither South African citizens nor permanent residents.
The South African National Taxi Council demands the scrapping of the National Land Transport Act and the government’s taxi-recapitalisation programme, the organisation’s president said on Friday. ”If the Act still exist in its current form, you will suffer for it,” AJ Mthembu told protesters at the Union Buildings.
Police on Friday confirmed a probe into a theft from a police safe in Benoni but would not say whether this involved the theft of heist money from the Johannesburg International airport robbery in March. Superintendent Eugene Opperman said a burglary took place on Wednesday at the serious and violent-crimes unit.
South Africa’s rugby bosses on Friday formally adopted a transformation charter designed to significantly increase the number of black people involved in the sport. South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Oregan Hoskins told a media briefing in Cape Town that Saru’s president’s council had given its blessing to the ”scientifically based” seven page document.
Colin Bower takes a broad swipe at Christianity in his new book, writes Drew Forrest.
Peter van Heerden’s wild performances that include branding lend new meaning to the term historical angst. Alex Sudheim attends his current retrospective.