The nationwide strike at South African gold mines is over, the Chamber of Mines said on Thursday. A spokesperson said the National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity trade union have accepted an offer of a pay increase of between 6% and 7%. The agreement covers two years and the minimum increase for the second year must be 5,5%.
Israel’s military on Thursday banned visitors from Gaza Strip settlements to try to stop the influx of pull-out protesters who plan to reinforce settler resistance to their evacuation. Police estimate that 2 000 opponents have sneaked into Gaza to back the 8 500 settlers, but settler leaders put the number at 5 000.
The body that was exhumed earlier this week in Umlazi, south of Durban, is not that of missing police Constable Frances Rasuge, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday. ”Our pathologist says it is the body of a 60-year-old woman,” police spokesperson Director Bala Naidoo said.
Hollywood star Forest Whitaker, who is playing Idi Amin in the screen version of the acclaimed novel The Last King of Scotland, says the late Ugandan dictator was no saint, but was not the monster that has been portrayed in the West. He says his research for the role in the film has changed his perception of Amin.
Floods caused by days of heavy rain have caused the collapse of about 3 000 houses and left up to 20 000 people homeless in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, a local Red Cross official told state radio on Thursday. Some of the homeless have been taken in by relatives.
The newly elected members of Burundi’s National Assembly and Senate began work on Thursday to prepare for the election next week of the country’s first post-transitional president. The August 19 vote is almost certain to elect former Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza as head of state.
Inkatha Freedom Party senior MP Gavin Woods has accused the media of selectively reporting only ”dramatic” sections of a leaked document penned by himself. The Mail & Guardian reported that the discussion document pulls no punches and calls for the ”infusion of new thinking and new minds”.
The European Union’s executive commission said on Thursday that it has decided to provide €7,9-million to support preparations for planned elections in Côte d’Ivoire. ”These elections represent a crucial stage for reconciliation in the country,” EU development commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.
A leading Iraqi Shi’ite politician demanded autonomy for central and southern provinces where the majority community predominates on Thursday, four days before the deadline for a final draft of a new Constitution. The proposed Shi’ite autonomous region would mirror a Kurdish one in the far north.
At least 43 people have drowned and another 15 are missing in flash floods caused by torrential rains in Golestan province in north-eastern Iran, the official news agency Irna reported on Thursday. About 350 families have lost their homes as a result of the deluge of heavy rain, which began on Tuesday.