Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi has refused to become India’s next prime minister, it was reported on Tuesday. She has apparently told senior Congress Party leaders that she does not want to head the new government, television network NDTV reported.
Hindu party to boycott Gandhi ceremony
Internationally renowned ichthyologist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer died on Monday, aged 97. Courtenay-Latimer achieved international recognition as the discoverer of the coelacanth in 1938 when it was thought to have been extinct for 70-million years. The fish genus was named Latimeria chulumnae in her honour.
With very little money, no drugs and facing a daily struggle to find food, Zex Thambo takes care of Aids orphans in a township of Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries and among the hardest hit by the pandemic. About 85 000 people die of Aids-related illnesses a year in this southern African country of 11-million.
Eleven Russian soldiers were killed in an ambush in Chechnya, an unidentified official at the Russian forces headquarters in the separatist republic was quoted as saying by the Interfax-AVN news agency early on Tuesday. A Russian armored vehicle then came to the men’s rescue, but Chechen fighters also blew it up and started shooting at its passengers as well, the official added.
South African businesses have their heads buried in the sand and do not wish to acknowledge what the concept of "transformation" means for their operations, independent economist Nico Czypionka told a breakfast meeting of the Italian-South African Chamber of Trade and Industries on Tuesday.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was drifting in the red in noon trade on Tuesday, dragged down by gold and platinum stocks, which were weaker on the back of lower precious metals prices. Heavyweight dual-listed stocks led the market’s upside, buoyed by a softer rand and in some cases positive performances offshore.
Survivors told of a deadly wall of flame that swept through a cellblock crowded with youth gang members in Honduras, killing 103 of them and sending fleeing inmates — many with limbs on fire — scrambling over the bodies of their dead comrades. The death toll was expected to rise; 103 of the 186 inmates died outright, and 23 more were hospitalised with severe burns.
South African chemical and synthetic fuels group Sasol on Tuesday named Eyesizwe Coal, the largest black-owned, -controlled, -operated and -managed coal-mining company in South Africa, as its lead black economic empowerment mining partner. Eyesizwe’s total coal production is approximately 25-million tons a year.
At least 17 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces continue their incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources reported on Tuesday. Israeli reports said the dead were mostly Palestinian fighters who were killed when Apache helicopters fired missiles.
Bedridden former US president Ronald Reagan, once known for his snappy soundbites, will soon be speaking publicly again — via a talking doll made in his likeness, manufacturers said on Monday. Reagan, now an ailing 93-year-old, is the latest political figure to get his own ”mini-me,” part of a line-up of dolls that includes President George Bush.