A doctor shortage has led to the Red Cross Children’s hospital closing its doors to patients requiring medical emergency assistance on a number of evenings. To address the situation in the long term, the hospital called for the quicker processing of work permits for foreign doctors at the home affairs department and registration through the Health Professions Council.
Mehdi, still hobbling after nine months, likened the torture to having his ”brain pulled out by a magnet”. Strapped to an electric chair inside the bowels of the Azerbaijani police’s organised crime unit, metal panels were put under his feet, he said. A plastic bib was tied to his front, and headphones with earpieces like the metal tip of a doctor’s otoscope were put inside his ears.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is concerned about the slow pace of informal talks aimed at resolving the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, his office said on Thursday. ”The president is very worried that the talks are moving too slowly,” his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is worried that amendments to immigration law have retained work permit provisions that create inequality between foreign and local workers. And it is adamant that attempts to attract foreign scarce skills should not undermine the training of locals.
Peter Brown is likely to be remembered in South Africa as the national chairperson of the Liberal Party. He was one of its founders in 1953 and was its chairperson when it disbanded in 1968, owing to the prohibition of racially mixed political organisations. Michael Gardiner pays tribute to the deceased.
The day before United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived, there had been as many as 4 000 people living in makeshift shelters in the patch of grubby sand between the fast-flowing river and the row of tiny headstones which mark the cemetery at Meshtel, in North Darfur. But in the middle of the night, that number had been reduced to zero.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: "The 1955 Ealing Studios classic <i>The Ladykillers</i>, a very British movie in almost every way, does not seem like an appropriate vehicle for a remake by Joel and Ethan Coen, known for their offbeat take on pop-Americana and their love of the South. At least not at first." Shaun de Waal reviews the remade <i>Ladykillers</i>.
"’My trumpet became my weapon,’ writes Masekela of his response to the time. It is this weapon that forms the focus of the book and links the events of Masekela’s life as he becomes one of South Africa’s prize-fighter musicians." Nadia Neophytou reviews <i>Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela</i>.
He arrived rattling in chains at the door of a building named Victory Courthouse in the grounds of his former palace now occupied by America’s generals. High Value Detainee One was uncuffed, brought in with guards holding him by the arms and curtly seated before the judge.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=118060&t=1">Saddam dismisses court as ‘theatre'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118062">Defence slams ‘illegal’ tribunal</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118085">Saddam upsets Kuwaiti ‘dogs'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118067">’Saddam should be wiped out'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118013">’I have a few questions…'</a>
Four years ago the beach at Sodwana in northern KwaZulu-Natal could have been mistaken for the Ben Schoeman highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Returning from a swim, you had to remember to look left and right before crossing the beach back to your towel. Has banning 4x4s from South Africa’s beaches been a good or bad thing? We investigate the pros and cons.