Two people burnt to death after their car was engulfed in a huge forest fire in Spain, officials said on Wednesday as firefighters battled blazes in many parts of sweltering southern Europe. Portugal appealed for more help from its European partners and in France authorities said they had succeeded in containing a large blaze.
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Wednesday rebuffed a call by KwaZulu-Natal’s minister for safety and security, Bheki Cele, to extradite Philip Powell from Britain to stand trial in connection with arms smuggling before the 1994 elections. The call was made after the discovery of weapons caches in the Ulundi Legislative Assembly two weeks ago.
South Africa’s opposition Freedom Front Plus says it is concerned about the black economic empowerment charter for agriculture — dubbed AgriBEE — because it introduces unrealistic time frames with too little emphasis on productivity as well as creating unachievable expectations.
The carpet that for many years carried visible stains of the blood from the stabbing of South Africa’s apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd has been removed from the Old House of Assembly at Parliament in Cape Town. Veteran politician Helen Suzman on Wednesday said she wondered what "had been swept under it over the years".
An envoy of the African Union’s chairperson, Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, views the Darfur problem as an internal African issue to be solved by the AU alone, Sudanese media reported on Wednesday. ”The Darfur problem is a purely African one that has to be resolved by the AU,” General Abdulsalami Abubakar said.
Sudan to face ‘genocide’ inquiry
Six people, believed to be the owners of Cape Town travel agencies, have been arrested by the Scorpions in connection with a parliamentary travel-voucher scam. Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said the six were at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court and should appear shortly.
Hundreds of Telkom workers are expected to take part in protests on Thursday against planned retrenchments at the company, the Solidarity trade union said. Employees at the Telkom’s head office are expected to present the company’s management with a petition signed by thousands of Telkom workers countrywide, the union said in a statement on Wednesday.
A strike by Iscor’s steelworkers was imminent with the trade union Solidarity saying on Wednesday that a preliminary mandate indicated that the company’s wage offer would be rejected. ”We were taken aback by the strong convictions of the people, which show that emotions run far deeper than the wage issue. Feelings are running very high,” Johan Pieterse, Solidarity’s chief secretary in Iscor.
Teresa Heinz Kerry auditioned before the American public early on Wednesday morning for the role of first lady with a speech that insisted upon her right to speak her mind. Taking her reputation for outspokenness head on, the multimillionaire wife of Senator John Kerry told delegates at the Democratic national convention that the right to speak freely was one she cherished.
An application to exclude 107 documents from the evidence against the 22 Boeremag treason-trial accused has failed, with the judge describing the application as premature and unfounded. The judge said he was unsure what documents he was being asked to exclude.