The plight of birdlife in Africa and other parts of the world is being highlighted at a meeting that is currently under way in the South African port city of Durban. A global report on bird populations has warned that a third of the world’s bird species is at risk of extinction. This amounts to about 400 types of birds.
The proliferation of political parties is a development that is not given sufficient attention. What does it mean and what is its potential impact on the country’s quest to actualise a democratic society? There are currently about 150 registered political parties. Thirty-seven of these are going to contest the election at provincial and/or national level.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was awash with red in noon trade on Thursday, ignoring a softer rand to focus instead on global market weakness. Losses were widespread and decliners outnumbered advancers on the all-share index by more than two to one.
Lawyers for gold mining company Durban Roodepoort Deep and Associated Intelligence Network are fighting against punitive damages being sought by mining magnates Brett and Roger Kebble. They are asking the Johannesburg High Court to dismiss the Kebble’s claim against them for constitutional punitive damages.
During December 2003, 192 625 overseas travellers visited South Africa, a 0,9% year-on-year increase, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. The total number of travellers who arrived in South Africa from mainland Africa during December 2003 was 430 734, which was a 3,8% decrease.
The men arrested aboard a plane in Zimbabwe are all former members of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force from the former 32 Battalion based in Namibia, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday. The source said the plane had indeed been transporting mercenaries to Equatorial Guinea, and it stopped over in Zimbabwe to pick up the weapons from a military depot.
Transport Minister Dullah Omar was in a serious condition in a Cape Town hospital on Thursday, following more than a year of treatment for cancer. Omar was admitted on Tuesday with respiratory problems and was in the intensive care unit on a ventilator, Constantiaberg Medi Clinic hospital manager Clive Lake said.
The Coega Development Corporation said on Wednesday that problems relating to a Coega industrial development zone contractor had been resolved. The CDC said that it had noted that the contractor on the Coega Construction Village Management contract was involved in irregular and ”unacceptable practices with regards to the appointment of labour”.
South Africa has come under pressure to abort its plan to sell ivory stockpiles after seven African states this week called for the proposed sales to be halted. The International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement on Wednesday that Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mali, Cameroon, Tunisia and Ghana were concerned that conditions under which the ivory should be sold had not been met.
North African pirates abducted and enslaved more than one million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids that depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new research. Thousands of white Christians were seized every year to work as galley slaves, labourers and concubines for Muslim overlords.