The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accused Uganda of massacring tens of thousands of civilians and plundering its rich natural resources at the start of two weeks of legal arguments at the United Nations’s highest legal body on Monday. The DRC is asking the UN court to order the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from its land.
The Eastern Cape social development department is investigating 2Â 000 public servants thought to be cheating the state out of R24-million in welfare grants. Those under suspicion include teachers and employees of the Eastern Cape agriculture department. Eight civil servants were arrested at Mthatha on Monday morning for grant fraud.
The Department of Education on Monday denied reports that schoolboys will be allowed to grow beards under the national guidelines on school uniforms. ”Nothing can be further from the truth,” the department said in a statement. It blamed the ”misconception” on ”second-hand reporting”.
Jazz saxophonist Robbie Jansen is still in a critical condition in a Cape Town hospital following his collapse last week, Mountain Records MD Patrick Lee-Thorp said on Monday. ”He is slipping in and out of consciousness. But some eye movement last night was a big breakthrough. It put our hopes up,” Lee-Thorp said.
The Department of Public Enterprises and state arms company Denel on Monday dismissed as speculation media reports about a board reshuffle. According to Business Report, rumours are rife that Denel chief executive Victor Moche and human resource director Eugene Martin have been suspended or dismissed or have resigned.
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) recommended on Monday the creation of a bank for storing samples of the continent’s plant resources. This should be done ”with a view to preserving plant species and reconstituting the vegetation cover in the event of major ecological disasters”, says a PAP recommendation.
The safety of miners engaged in an underground strike since Friday is more important than labour grievances, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday. ”They [mine management] might be 120 times wrong but we must focus on the health and safety of the miners now to avert a crisis,” said Cosatu.
Up to 200 workers are believed trapped in the rubble of an eight-storey factory that collapsed in Bangladesh on Monday. Fifteen people have been confirmed killed, officials said. The concrete building, packed with night-shift workers, caved in soon after midnight when a boiler exploded, said a police spokesperson.
Allegations about the competence of a trainee pilot who died in an aircraft crash at the weekend were part of the inquiry into the matter, the South African Air Force (SAAF) said on Monday. SAAF spokesperson Captain Ronald Maseko was reacting to a newspaper report asking who would accept responsibility for the pupil pilot’s death on Saturday during a solo navigation training flight.
President Robert Mugabe’s government is to compensate hundreds of white farmers whose land was seized under Zimbabwe’s land-reform programme, a state-run newspaper said on Monday. ”Government has completed fixing compensation for 822 farms compulsorily acquired,” The Herald said.