Typhoon Aere crashed into mainland China, unleashing torrential rains and prompting the evacuation of nearly a million people as the death toll climbed to 35 on Thursday after a mudslide killed 15 villagers in Taiwan, burying all of the village’s homes in just 10 seconds. Meanwhile, another typhoon is building up.
South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has been urged not to wait until the medium-term budget policy statement in October to announce a relaxation of exchange controls. Democratic Alliance finance spokesperson Raenette Taljaard said important initiatives "should be announced when the market is ready for them".
Trade union Solidarity on Thursday said in a statement that it has served legal papers on steel producer Ispat-Iscor in which it asks that the company’s current retrenchment process be declared void. The union claims that should its application succeed, the action will be a watershed for retrenchments in South Africa.
Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, arrived at the gates of the holy city of Najaf on Thursday in a bid to end weeks of fighting between United States forces and Iraqi insurgents there, his aides said. Al-Sistani left the city of Basra in a 30-vehicle convoy of sport utility vehicles earlier on Thursday.
Najaf uprising seems to be near end
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has been defeated in Vanderbiljpark — until now regarded as a safe seat — where it put up a ”test case” black candidate in a overwhelmingly white municipal ward. The seat — fought in a by-election on Wednesday — was won by Cobus Cato of the conservative Freedom Front Plus.
Zimbabwean intelligence agencies are ”monitoring” cash flows to some foreign embassies in the country. According to a newspaper report, the monitoring is to identify diplomatic missions suspected of funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). ”No money is given to us by foreigners,” the MDC said.
British govt doesn’t support MDC
Plans to establish a Great Limpopo Transfrontier Area — almost trebling the area of land currently protected by the transfrontier park of the same name — are moving ahead, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of this year’s National Tourism Month.
The Gauteng Taxi Council on Thursday embarked on a march around Johannesburg demanding the Gauteng government recognise its members and deal with problems facing the industry. In seven days the organisation plans a countrywide march if the provincial government does not meet certain demands.
The United Nations is trying to transform one of the most politically unstable countries in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), into a multiparty democracy with elections scheduled for 2005. But to do so, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to more than double the number of UN peacekeepers in the DRC.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that his government supported the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party in Zimbabwe. Straw said a total of 45-million pounds (about R539-million) was available to fund land reform in Zimbabwe should a solution be found to the political and economic crisis in that country.