The African Union has asked Nato to prolong its mission in Sudan’s violence-wracked Darfur region to help back a peacekeeping operation there, an alliance spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”The AU has asked Nato to extend its current support to the end of September,” said spokesperson James Appathurai.
The White House on Wednesday vowed there would be no direct negotiations with Iran unless it suspends its uranium-enrichment programme. ”Iran has to take that fundamental step when it comes to enriching and reprocessing uranium,” White House spokesperson Tony Snow told reporters.
South African star all-rounder and vice-captain Jacques Kallis is to undergo surgery next week to repair the ”tennis elbow” injury that has plagued him since November last year. Physiotherapist Shane Jabaar said on Wednesday that this meant that Kallis was unlikely to tour Sri Lanka in August.
The Springboks will likely be without a host of top players when they clash with a World XV in their season-opener next Saturday, with captain John Smit the biggest casualty. Smit has been laid low by a recurring groin injury and his place will likely be taken by the Bulls’ Gary Botha, who had to return to Pretoria for personal reasons.
A high court order interdicting striking security guards from any involvement in violence was granted to Metrorail and security employers on Wednesday. According to the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, it was interdicted from committing, orchestrating, promoting, encouraging, participating in or condoning acts of violence.
South Africa faces a massive task in reaching the Millennium Development Goals for child survival in 2015, with trends showing that the mortality rates of infants and children under the age of five were increasing rather than decreasing. ”Currently, the prospect of having to reduce the child-death figures … by two-thirds by 2015 seems dismal,” a two-day conference heard.
There is no crisis in the African National Congress, the party’s deputy president Jacob Zuma told the National Union of Mineworkers on Wednesday. ”Many commentators and analysts would have you believe that there is a crisis in the ANC,” Zuma told the 12th national congress of the union at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. ”That is not so. There is no crisis in the ruling party.”
The Gauteng provincial minister for Education, Angie Motshekga, on Wednesday condemned attempts by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) to disrupt schooling in the Gauteng province. ”Since the beginning of this week, members of Cosas have been disrupting schools,” the Gauteng Department of Education said in a statement.
Springbok rugby coach Jake White testified behind closed doors on Wednesday while former rugby boss Brian van Rooyen remained absent from a disciplinary inquiry, which is hearing corporate-mismanagement allegations against him. White was the day’s first witness at the closed hearing in Bloemfontein.
Since 1956, when Shell first struck oil in Nigeria, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant has never been under fire like it has since the beginning of the year, analysts said on Wednesday. Shell’s foray into Nigeria’s lucrative oil industry began with the historic feat of striking the first oil well in Oloibiri in present-day southern Bayelsa state.