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South Africa’s long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings were raised one notch each by agency Standard & Poor’s on Monday. The upgrade, which reflects on a country’s ability to repay money borrowed on the international markets, is based on improved macro-economic stability, the agency said in a statement.
An Egyptian man charged over the deadly attacks in Sinai last October and suspected of links to last month’s multiple bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh was killed on Monday by security forces, police said. Mohammed Saleh Felifel was killed in the Ataqa Mountains, east of Cairo and across from the Sinai peninsula.
The All Blacks imposed a rigid blackout of their morning training session on the third day of their stay in Durban in preparation for the upcoming Tri-Nations rugby Test against the Springboks in Cape Town on Saturday. At the end of the session, the media were granted interviews with lock James Ryan and fullback Leon McDonald.
The United Association of South Africa (Uasa) has declared a dispute with the Chamber of Mines over wage increases and will know on Thursday whether to strike. A Uasa official said the Chamber of Mines has not revised an offer it made last week of 5% for workers in some categories and 4,5% for other workers.
A faction in the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union tried to discredit Willie Madisha, the union’s president, when it leaked information that he was ordered to repay union money used to settle his tax bill, the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Monday. In 2002, the faction also sought to discredit Thulas Nxesi, Cosatu said.
Zambia will not meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) target to put 100 000 HIV/Aids-infected people on anti-retroviral therapy by the end of the year, the government announced on Monday. The country does not have the financial or human resource capacity to meet this target, according to the minister of health.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe returned to work on Monday after a visit to China yielded a few agreements but fell way short of an expected rescue package for his country, and remained defiant of Western criticism of his regime. The 81-year-old leader shrugged off global pressure over his government’s urban demolition blitz.
Several people were killed and many others were wounded on Monday in rioting that broke out in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, following the announcement of southern leader John Garang’s death in an air crash, a Khartoum-based diplomat said. Anti-Arab riots also erupted on Monday in Juba, the main city in southern Sudan.