South African and Zimbabwean church leaders agreed at a meeting on Monday to create a task team to promote talks between Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The agreement, however, is in principle, said Russel Botman, the president of the South African Council of Churches.
Côte d’Ivoire refugees living in West African neighbour Liberia stormed their embassy on Monday to protest their treatment by diplomatic representatives, an AFP reporter saw. About 30 Ivorian men, women and children pulled down the orange, white and green Ivorian flag from outside the mission and took an embassy vehicle.
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People are growing weary of violence and do not wish to die for someone else seeking a seat in Parliament, Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Monday. She added that in the past three weeks there had been 18 political rallies and only three incidents of violence, all in KwaZulu-Natal.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Charges against the man accused of murdering Johannesburg socialite Hazel Crane and her estranged husband Shai Avissar were withdrawn on Monday after the investigation officer died of a heart attack. The accused, Lior Saat, an alleged member of the Israeli mafia, was arrested in April 2001 and has been in custody ever since.
South Africa would "have no problem" with granting asylum to ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but no formal request has been received, the government said on Monday. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said a final decision, based on a formal request, would be made by the Cabinet.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=31998">Martyr in search of asylum</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=31962">SA ‘unaware’ of Aristide asylum</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=31953">US goes in as Aristide flees Haiti</a>
Egyptian authorities have entrapped, arrested and tortured hundreds of gay men suspected of engaging in consensual homosexual sex, a New York-based human rights group claimed in a report released on Monday that demands an end to such actions.
The City of Cape Town has concluded a major black economic empowerment (BEE) transaction for the sale of the Epping Fresh Produce Market, the largest by a South African municipality to date. The transaction also includes an important and historic agreement with the South African Municipal Workers Union’s Cape Metro branch.
Islamic Jihad threatened on Sunday to avenge the assassination of three of its activists in Gaza at the weekend with a wave of attacks that would mark ”the blackest days in Israel’s history”. About 25 000 people attended the funerals of the three men, who were killed by an Israeli helicopter missile strike on their car on Saturday evening.
The head of America’s oldest gun maker, Smith & Wesson, has resigned after a local newspaper exposed his past as a convicted armed robber. It emerged that James Joseph Minder (74) appointed as chairman just a month ago, spent more than a decade in prison in the 1950s and 1960s and had even attempted a jailbreak.