KwaZulu-Natal transport MEC S’bu Ndebele on Thursday called for an independent investigation into an accident on the Harrismith-Bergville road in which eight British tourists died. Ndebele also sent his condolences to the families bereaved by the accident, which took place at 4pm on New Year’s Eve.
More than two million Zimbabweans have flooded into South Africa over the past nine years to escape the repression and torture of Robert Mugabe’s vilified regime, but only 11 have been granted political asylum. In the first nine months of 2003 the South African authorities arrested and deported 41 000 Zimbabweans and sent them back across the border.
It has already been dubbed Parmasplat, and Europe’s Enron. The Securities and Exchange Commission has called it: ”One of the largest and most brazen corporate financial frauds in history.” The sheer scale of the scandal that has unfolded has left Italy gasping for breath and Parmalat’s founder under arrest.
Sceptics who refused to believe that Russia was a new power in the commercial world were sent packing in 2003. Russian business leaders showed that they had plenty of ambition outside their home turf while western executives demonstrated they were willing to plough large sums of money into the former Soviet Union.
A court is to decide whether a popular video game in which the players can kick a prostitute to death and get extra points for killing Haitians should be removed from the shelves. Civil rights groups brought the case against the award-winning game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, because it tells players to ”Kill the Haitians”.
Libya was under additional pressure to renounce weapons of mass destruction after a ship carrying thousands of centrifuges capable of developing weapons-grade uranium was intercepted on its way to Tripoli. The German freighter was intercepted shortly after it passed through the Suez Canal in October.
Israel’s plan to expand settlements on the occupied Golan Heights violates international law and shows that the Jewish state is not willing to reach a peace agreement with Syria, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said on Thursday.
Angolan opposition leader Isaias Samakuva has urged the holding of legislative and presidential elections in the southwest African country in September 2005. The Unita head called on the legislature to complete a review of the constitution and electoral law to enable the holding of polls in the war-ravaged country.
The US dollar gold price is likely to continue its two-year bull trend in 2004 driven by a weak US dollar, the renewal of the Washington central bank gold agreement and the threat of renewed terrorist attacks, Switzerland-based MKS Finance analyst Frederic Panizzutti says.
President Thabo Mbeki has been ill-advised to link celebrations of SAs first Haiti’s decade of democracy with festivities marking Haiti.