A powerful new militia dubbed ”the Pakistani Taliban” has effectively seized control of swathes of the country’s northern tribal areas in recent months, triggering alarm in Islamabad and marking a big setback in the United States’s ”war on terror”. The militants are strongest in North and South Waziristan.
Traditional healers in Zimbabwe’s southern Masvingo province have called on the government to allow them to visit public hospitals to administer herbs to patients who are otherwise not getting much help from the state institutions because of a shortage of medicines.
A KwaZulu-Natal provincial minister, Narend Singh, has been granted 10 days’ leave after reports of a sex DVD — in which he was shown — appeared in weekend newspapers. Singh’s spokesperson Keshika Singh said on Monday he had requested a leave of absence from KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele.
Eskom has rejected a claim by the trade union Solidarity that it turned down a coloured man for a job because he was ”too white” to benefit from the company’s affirmative-action programme. Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said on Monday that Leon Christiaans was never offered the position in question.
The Bloemfontein Women’s Memorial should also reflect the history of black women and children, the African National Congress Women’s League said on Monday. The sandstone obelisk pays tribute to women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer South African War.
South Africa’s Constitution runs the risk of being downgraded to a mere Act of Parliament, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Tuesday. In his Human Rights Day message, Leon said the Constitution has been subjected to a slew of amendments that undermine its vitality and centrality.
It would be premature to recommend that Parliament punish Cabinet ministers who failed to declare directorships with companies, Auditor General Shauket Fakie said on Monday. In his 2004/05 report, Fakie found that 14 Cabinet ministers had violated the parliamentary code of conduct in this way.
An earthquake hit the north-east Algerian town of Laalam east of Algiers late on Monday, killing at least four people and injuring 67, local authorities in Bejaia district said, quoted by national radio. About 30 houses collapsed, Algerian news agency APS quoted the authorities as saying.
Shooter Diane Swanton won South Africa’s seventh gold of the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday but was pushed all the way to the women’s trap title by a heavily pregnant rival. The 25-year-old from Pretoria marked her Games debut with a score of 92, six better than Rebecca Madyson who took silver for Malta with 86.
Troops headed for cyclone-devastated north-east Australia on Tuesday as Prime Minister John Howard pledged quick aid for those left homeless or without power by the country’s worst storm in decades. Cyclone Larry hit the Queensland coast as a highest-level category-five storm on Monday, destroying hundreds of homes.