Pakistani voters went to the polls on Thursday for local elections that are being seen as a test of President Pervez Musharraf’s fight against Islamic hard-liners and his commitment to women’s rights. Five people died and scores were injured in clashes between rival supporters in the first elections in Pakistan in almost three years.
Legislators for Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change on Thursday caught police by surprise and flouted Zimbabwe’s security laws when they took part in a low-key march in Harare against an ”anti-people Budget” presented to Parliament earlier this week and pending constitutional changes.
The prosecution of former deputy president Jacob Zuma could lead to turmoil in South Africa’s democracy, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warned on Thursday. The Cosatu central committee condemned the earlier raids on Zuma’s residences on Thursday.
Thousands of Israeli stormed the main synagogue of the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim on Thursday to remove about 1Â 500 protesters, one of the last bastions of resistance to the Gaza pull-out.
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.