An upbeat New Year’s message by Swaziland Prime Minister Themba Dlamini has been rebutted by the kingdom’s pro-democracy groups, with labour unions calling for a general strike in January to protest lavish royal spending and a controversial draft Constitution. The nationwide general strike is set for January 25.
The Japanese cult behind a deadly 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway will end a ritual in which followers spend long hours in scalding water after a sect member died in a bathtub, officials said on Monday. Wakashio Togashi (45), who had been a senior member of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, was found dead in the bathtub at another Aum follower’s house.
Indian police have arrested a man who sent people fleeing in panic when he sounded a false tsunami alarm in the southern city of Madras, a report said on Monday. ”The tsunami is coming, run, run,” Jackey (30), who has only one name, shouted on Sunday in a fishing cove along the city’s famed Marina beach.
As police hinted at withdrawing at least some of the over-stretched officers manning strike-hit prisons in the Eastern Cape, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union on Sunday warned that the action is just the build-up to countrywide disruptions.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was near a new high at midday on Monday after an extremely quiet morning’s trade. While the bourse was lifted by a weaker rand in early trade, it managed to maintain its strength despite a recovery in the currency. By 11.58am, the all-share index was up 0,46% at 12 715.
Retiring Old Mutual plc chairperson Mike Levett has resigned as a non-executive director of the boards of Old Mutual subsidiaries Nedcor and Nedbank. He will be replaced on the Nedcor boards by Bob Head (45), who is currently director responsible for group human resources, brand and strategy at Old Mutual plc, based in London.
South African-born Zimbabwean nationalist leader Ruth Chinamano has died, family members said on Monday. She was ”in her 70s”, they said. Chinamano began organising women’s demonstrations against colonial and Rhodesia rule in Harare’s Highfields township, a place often cited as the birth of Zimbabwe’s nationalist movement.
Just three months before parliamentary polls set for March, Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF has slashed several ”prominent names” from contesting important party primary elections. Information Minister and President Robert Mugabe’s chief spin doctor Jonathan Moyo is one of three ministers prohibited from contesting the primaries.
Iraqi insurgents are waging an all-out war on the country’s vital oil industry, which has lost nearly -billion in revenue since last year’s United States-led invasion. Osama bin Laden ordered his supporters to sabotage oil facilities in Iraq and the Gulf, in an audio tape attributed to the al-Qaeda leader broadcast on an Islamist website last month.
Crude futures fell sharply on Monday on the first trading day of the new year as milder winter weather across the north-eastern United States eased demand on heating oil in the high-usage area. Mid-morning in Asia, crude for February delivery fell 70 cents to ,72 per barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.