Workers were on Thursday beginning to clear thousands of tons of mud and rock from a main road in Scotland, a day after two massive landslides left more than 50 people stranded. Motorists had to be winched to safety by helicopter after the landslides blocked two parts of the A85 motorway in central Scotland.
Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri is willing to meet with the three unions at Telkom to discuss the fixed-line monopoly’s retrenchment proposals, her spokesperson Donovan Cloete said on Thursday. ”The meeting will happen. The minister will engage with the unions,” he said.
Typhoon Megi ploughed through South Korea’s southern provinces on Thursday, causing flash floods that left eight people dead or missing, disaster officials said on Thursday. Heavy rain brought by the typhoon left 2 400 people homeless in southern coastal regions, the national anti-disaster agency said.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma has condemned the carrying-out of a witchhunt against MPs allegedly involved in the Travelgate scam. The deputy president told MPs: ”I will never participate in the campaign against people when they are not found guilty … if there is no evidence conclusively that says, yes, they have erred.”
The head of a suspected mercenary recruitment agency, one other man and a two women were released by the Scorpions in Cape Town on Thursday after being questioned about possibly illegal military activity. A spokesperson for the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions said the investigation is not over.
National health legislation, due to be signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki, will prohibit the manipulation of any human genetic material for the purpose of reproductive cloning. The minister of health said the legislation permits her to allow ”therapeutic cloning … under prescribed conditions”.
Human rights group Amnesty International on Thursday called for an independent international investigation into last week’s massacre in western Burundi, when 158 Congolese refugees were shot, hacked, clubbed and burnt to death. The FNL (National Liberation Forces), the last rebel group fighting the government in Burundi, immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack on the Gatumba refugee camp.
A barrage of mortar rounds slammed into a police station in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, killing at least seven police officers and wounding 31 others, a hospital official said. The police station has been the frequent target of attacks from militants loyal to radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
An Iraqi Cabinet minister said on Thursday that Iraqi forces could begin an offensive against Moqtada al-Sadr within hours, despite the firebrand cleric’s acceptance of a peace proposal. To prevent an imminent attack on his forces, al-Sadr must immediately disarm his Mehdi Army militia.
Mortar rounds hit police station
They trigger fires, prey on the elderly and thrive in the cement jungles of Japanese cities. But they’re not delinquents or gang members. Japan’s latest urban scourge comes not on two legs, but on four: big city rats. Complaints about the rodents have soared over the past decade.