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.
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.
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.
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.
The Nyiragongo volcano that looms over Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo could soon wipe out the city, said a risk analysis report by volcano experts. Provincial authorities in Nord-Kivu have prohibited public release of the report that recommends the city be moved to avoid the fallout of another volcanic eruption, possibly within two years.
A Congolese court on Wednesday acquitted all 15 defendants in the trial over the 1999 murder of about 350 refugees in Brazzaville after finding them not guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. However the court ordered the Congolese government to pay 10-million CFA francs to the relatives of 86 of the missing refugees.
A bid by the state to view an e.tv documentary on the murder of baby Jordan Norton before it is broadcast is nothing less than censorship, the station’s advocate told the Cape High Court on Thursday. The Western Cape directorate of public prosecutions is seeking an order that will allow it to preview the documentary.
Rescuers have yet to retrieve any of up to 40 miners missing since an illegal gold pit collapsed in Ghana last week, and hopes are fading for any survivors, authorities at the scene said on Thursday. Rescuers are still pondering how to reach the bottom of the pit.
Listed fashion retailer Truworths International has reported a 31% rise in its fully diluted headline earnings per share for the year to the end of June 2005, to 140,8 cents from 107,4 cents a year earlier. The company declared a final dividend of 37 cents per share, which brings the total dividend for the year to 69 cents.