Failed Guinea-Bissau presidential hopeful Kumba Yala agreed on Monday to accept the results of June 19 polls ”in the interests of peace,” after three of his supporters were killed during a police crackdown on a rally to protest the vote. ”I won the elections, but the results were changed,” he said.
At least 300 000 children have dropped out of school in Zimbabwe since a government-driven campaign to demolish shacks and other unauthorised homes was launched nearly six weeks ago, a teachers’ union said on Tuesday. Pupils are skipping class to help guard property and possessions which had been left in the open.
Pfizer has announced that a review has concluded that Viagra doesn’t increase patients’ risk of blindness but that it is still working with federal regulators to update the drug’s label to reflect rare reports of vision loss. This follows 38 reports of blindness among Viagra users.
Gari Dombo has been appointed as managing director of Alexander Forbes Personal Insurance Services, a division of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Alexander Forbes group, with immediate effect. He is the first black MD to be appointed by the group.
Seventeen ships from five nations staged a mock sea battle off southern England on Tuesday to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, during which Admiral Horatio Nelson routed Napoleon Bonaparte’s French and Spanish forces and ensured that Britain ruled the waves for more than a hundred years.
John Fiedler, a stage and screen actor who grew up in Wisconsin and won fame as the voice of Piglet in Walt Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh films, died from cancer, according to his brother, James Fiedler. He was 80. Fiedler died on Saturday in New York, a day after the death of Paul Winchell (82) who created the lispy voice of Winnie the Pooh’s animated friend Tigger in the Disney films.
Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi has accused certain newspapers of being ”part of a faction of the African National Congress”. Among the accused is the Mail & Guardian. ”Where is the working class media,” he asked.
Three new sites in South Africa may become United Nations world heritage sites. They are the Vredefort Dome in the Free State, the Taung Skull fossil site in the North West province and the Makapans Valley in the Limpopo province. The nominations were unveiled in Johannesburg on Tuesday by Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang says South African HIV/Aids patients should be given the option to turn to traditional forms of medication as an alternative to anti-retroviral treatment. She said garlic is a key ingredient in the fight against HIV/Aids and is particularly useful in fighting fungus ”in the intestines and in the vagina”.
American high-speed cable networks are not required to provide access to rival internet service companies, the US Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a case watched for implications on competition for internet access. The ruling paves the way for the federal regulators to ease open-access obligations on big phone carriers.