Mining magnate Brett Kebble announced on Thursday he is instituting legal action against Bulelani Ngcuka, following allegations of fraud made against him by the head of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions. He said the allegations stem from a July 24 meeting Ngcuka held with editors.
South Africa effectively has two economies and interventions made in the last nine years of democracy have addressed only one of these, said South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday. Speaking at a Black Management Forum conference, Mbeki used a double-storey house as a metaphor for the South African economy.
Oil prices trickled down on Thursday after a planned general strike by Nigerian workers, which could have affected the country’s oil industry, was called off at the last moment. The price of reference Brent North Sea crude oil for November delivery fell 19 cents to ,54 per barrel in early deals.
Opposition parties want the minister of transport to send the government’s taxi recapitalisation programme back to the drawing board, saying the ”wheels have come off” the programme. This follows a court interdict granted on Wednesday to stop the signing of a memorandum between the government and the South African National Taxi Council.
The August heatwave kindled the love light in the beds of southwest France. Oyster beds, that is, and the result is an unprecedented baby boom of 100-billion larvae. ”This record explosion is the result of the summer’s exceptional weather conditions. Reproduction has been especially abundant,” said an official.
Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir has publicly praised his long-time enemy, the leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, John Garang, and invited him to form a partnership once a peace deal has been signed. He invited Garang to enter into ”an effective political partnership”.
Three media organisations have expressed their opposition to the serving of a subpoena on political reporter Ranjeni Munusamy in an attempt to force her to give evidence before the Hefer Commission and testify on the spy allegations against National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka.
Aids drug lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) lost 100 of its leaders to the disease over a four-month period, chairperson Zackie Achmat said on Thursday. Most of those who died were women younger than 24. Only one was taking anti-retroviral drugs.
Traditional chiefs in conservative areas of northern Niger have agreed to spread messages on HIV/Aids in an attempt to curb its spread in this landlocked Sahelian country. Unicef has said it has received a positive response from chiefs, helping it reach more people with different health messages.
At least 54 people were killed when a three-vehicle collision in Indonesia exploded into flames, trapping the victims, most of them schoolgirls, inside their burning bus. Forty-nine girls, aged between 17 and 18, died in the inferno after the bus was crushed between two vehicles on Wednesday evening on a dark and busy highway.