With large-scale retrenchments of about 21Â 000 workers looming over Kenya’s civil service, union officials say they have presented research to the government showing that the ranks of public employees are already being substantially thinned by retirement and other factors.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) and the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nafcoc) formed a partnership on Tuesday to promote black economic empowerment through small- and medium-sized enterprises. The parties signed a memorandum of understanding at the JSE in Sandton.
Key political players in the Burundi peace process, including President Domitien Ndayizeye, entered a fourth day of talks in Pretoria on Tuesday to try to agree on an election timetable. South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is the chief mediator in the negotiations, continued consultations that started on Saturday after the Burundi government announced that it had plans to delay elections by a year.
Senior South African diplomat Nicky Scholtz was bound with wire, beaten and repeatedly tortured during a week of captivity after being seized by kidnappers from one of the Malaysian capital’s busiest streets, officials said on Tuesday. Scholtz’s captors, who thought he was a tourist, extorted thousands of dollars and threatened to kill him.
South African petroleum product price rises will be capped at 30 cents a litre and this policy will be maintained for as long as possible, Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka announced on Tuesday afternoon. The government in May expressed concern about current and future petrol-price increases.
One of the major issues holding up the announcement of South Africa’s much-delayed taxi recapitalisation programme is an assessment of the costs of the subsidy scheme, which applies to the purchase of the envisaged new 18- and 35-seater taxis. The government has for five years been struggling to implement the programme.
At least 10 people were killed in an explosion near Baghdad’s ”green zone” shortly after the Iraqi governing council named the country’s new president. The blast tore through the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, close to the heavily guarded compound where the United States-led administration in Iraq is based. US soldiers were seen rushing to the scene and shooting rang out after the explosion.
Dozens of pharmacies in Johannesburg and Cape Town closed their doors for three hours on Tuesday as pharmacists took part in a staged protested against new medicine legislation. Meanwhile, the laws were contested in courts in Pretoria and the Mother City.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=67187">Manto ‘acted beyond her powers'</a>
Congolese soldiers fought troops loyal to a renegade commander near the eastern town of Bukavu on Tuesday, breaking a shaky ceasefire and spurring United Nations peacekeepers to try to negotiate an end to the violence, a UN spokesperson said. Fighting broke out again on Tuesday near the airport, which is controlled by UN forces.
The Shembe church in Inanda, Durban, is laying claim to the vuvuzela horn, which has become the ubiquitous symbol of South African soccer. A spokesperson said on Tuesday that the horn was first used by Prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1910 and since then church members have been using it when they dance during worshipping.