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.
A recently constituted environmental action group, the Sasolburg Air Quality Monitoring Committee, is set to fight the air pollution that it alleges oil and chemical group Sasol’s creates in Sasolburg, the organisation said on Thursday.
Amnesty and Oxfam have joined with the International Action Network on Small Arms to campaign for a treaty to stop arms being exported to destinations where thay are likely to be used to commit human rights abuses. The groups are seeking the adoption of such a treaty by 2006.
The government’s response to his criticism of President Thabo Mbeki’s Aids pronouncements recalled PW Botha, satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys said this week. Uys was hitting back at scathing statements by government representatives in reaction to an open letter he had written to Mbeki, calling for the president’s replacement.
A suicide car bomber hit a police station in northeast Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing 10 people, including two people in the car and three policemen, and injuring 28. After the blast occurred, an Iraqi policeman and a television news crew were attacked by the crowds that had gathered at the scene.
Forty-six percent of South Africans who participated in a poll conducted by Research Surveys in August this year believed that President Thabo Mbeki was doing a good job as president of South Africa. Research Surveys said the results of the poll stemmed from interviews with 3 500 respondents over the age of 18.
The emergence of the Group of 20+ developing countries at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun was an "important moral and political victory" that strengthened the bargaining power of developing countries, according to South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel.
The continuing strength of the rand poses a serious and immediate challenge to De Beers — the world’s largest diamond miner — which reports its earnings in United States dollars, managing director Gary Ralfe said on Wednesday. A reduction of staffing levels will be necessary.
Banking group Absa has been hit by another internet theft, SABC television news reported on Wednesday. Police and Absa in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, were investigating claims made a client that R52 000 was withdrawn from his account.