The two municipal workers’ unions involved in a pay dispute have rejected a revised pay deal, the unions said on Thursday. ”It was an overwhelming no,” a union spokesperson said on the deadline for acceptance of a proposal that unions and employers change their negotiating mandates.
British troops combating the heat and dust of Iraq and Afghanistan have a new weapon in their armoury, defence officials announced on Thursday — germ-fighting underwear. The antimicrobial underpants have been introduced by the ministry of defence as part of a new desert uniform for soldiers.
One of the ecumenical movement’s most emblematic figures has been stabbed to death during evening prayers at the popular interfaith community he founded in France. Brother Roger, a 90-year-old Protestant pastor who founded the Taizé religious community in 1940, was stabbed by a woman about 8.40pm on Tuesday in front of a congregation of some 2 500 young people.
Crude oil prices posted gains on Thursday, a day after plunging nearly , amid renewed concerns about gasoline shortages and supply disruption in Ecuador and Nigeria. ”We do not believe that the oil market has yet fully convinced itself that more than is sustainable in terms of growth,” said one analyst.
Google said on Thursday it has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed public offering of 14,2-million class-A common shares. Google shares, which have tripled in value since going public one year ago, closed on Wednesday at ,10 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The government is not working to destroy the taxi industry, but wants it to benefit the country’s population, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe said on Thursday. ”Our government and our movement, the African National Congress, could not work against the interests of the taxi industry,” he said in Durban.
African conservationists on Thursday dismissed with contempt a suggestion by United States scientists that the best way to save the planet’s large wild mammals, most of them native to Africa, is to build a huge nature preserve in the midwest United States.
Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Mswati III has ordered an end to a five-year no-sex rite for teenage girls, who had to pledge chastity and wear woollen ”do not touch me” tassels in a bid to halt the spread of Aids. Swaziland’s maidens will forsake their tassels on August 22, ahead of the annual reed-dance ceremony.
University of Pretoria students sang the apartheid-era national anthem Die Stem during a protest on Thursday against the alleged sidelining of Afrikaans at the institution. Protesters chanted slogans such as ”Engels se gat [English’s arse]” and ”Waar’s demokrasie nou? [Where is democracy now?]”.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>There were no sinister motives behind the Scorpions’ swoop on the Johannesburg home of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, that of his financial adviser Schabir Shaik and other residences and offices on Thursday, said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), also denying the raids were conducted in response to Congress of South African Trade Unions statements on Zuma.