Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson said on Monday that apart from a crisis centre at the Department of Foreign Affairs, there has been "very little concern and involvement by President Thabo Mbeki’s government in helping to relieve the suffering of those affected by the Asian tsunami".
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177318">Tsunami toll passes 144 000</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=177348">Insurers cautious about tsunami claims</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=177278">SA’s tsunami death toll rises</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177286">Record aid operation, but progress slow</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177284">Will the $2bn aid actually materialise?</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=177271">More SA tsunami survivors return</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177268">World tsunami aid tops R12bn</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-International&ao=177270">Tsunami warnings could save thousands</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-International&ao=177269">Focus: Tsunami catastrophe</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/content/l3_fl2.asp?cg=tsunami%20disaster&o=194303">Tsunami disaster special report</a>
Insurgents have exposed the vulnerability of Iraq’s security forces again, killing at least 22 national guardsmen and their driver in a suicide bombing and 10 other people in separate attacks by the end of the weekend. On Monday, a suicide car bomber killed a further three people and wounding 25, officials and witnesses said.
Japanese officials have urged the ageing nation to cut their rice cakes before eating them after three elderly people choked to death on the New Year’s delicacy. Tokyo residents aged 75, 79 and 80 died of suffocation and 27 others were hospitalised over the holiday weekend after failing to swallow down the thick white cakes.
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.
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.
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.
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.