OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 1.30pm THE 24000 or so members of the National Union of Mineworkers, at Amplats, the world’s largest platinum producer will be called on to begin striking next Thursday. NUM’s decision to seek a mandate has come after it failed to resolve issues with Amplats. Issues centered on the Basic Conditions […]
BELGIAN Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt will visit South Africa on Thursday and Friday for talks with President Thabo Mbeki on the situation in central Africa and the Great Lakes region. Verhofstadt would also call on former president Nelson Mandela to discuss the peace efforts in the Great Lakes region. He will be accompanied by Belgium’s […]
FIVE elderly women were killed and nine other people were injured in a fire at a retirement home in Port Elizabeth. The victims were all women aged between 88 and 98, police said. It was initially unclear if they burned to death or died from smoke inhalation. The injured were taken to hospital and treated […]
A NEW night time curfew began on Tuesday night in Ivory Coast after soldiers took to the streets for the first time since the December coup. Military ruler General Robert Guei imposed the 7pm. to 6am curfew after soldiers took to the streets of Abidjan and other towns in the country. Firing into the air […]
THE Gauteng health department says the situation at most provincial hospitals is back to normal, with many performing well. Spokeswoman Jo-Anne Collinge says a meeting between the regional leaders of NEHAWU and officials of the health department attempted to normalise the situation at the Helen Joseph Hospital, following weks of tension between hospital management and […]
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PHILIPPINE officials have suspended contacts with Muslim extremists holding 20 mostly foreign hostages, sources close to the talks said on Sunday. Provincial governor Abdusakur Tan ordered government emissaries to cease visiting the Abu Sayyaf jungle hideout on the southern Philippine island of Jolo, said the sources, who asked not to be named. The emissaries had […]
THE Cape High Court has refused to grant bail to People Against Gangsterism and Drugs leader Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim, arrested in December. Ebrahim, 41, is facing charges of murder — including the public lynching of gang boss Rashaad Staggie in August 1996 – public violence, intimidation, attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, extortion and conspiracy […]
NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo is holding crisis talks to prevent a second nationwide public sector strike within a month, as industrial unrest spread in the country. The governors of Nigeria’s 36 states met in Abuja on Monday and issued a communique agreeing to pay their lowest paid workers a minimum of 5500 naira (55 dollars) […]
ALMOST 400 families who squat illegally in the protected Dukuduku forest near St Lucia in northern KwaZulu-Natal registered this weekend to be moved to alternative land. The squatters have lived in the forest for the past 20 years and their presence prevented what is one of South Africa’s last indigenous coastal forests from being included […]