The Chamber of Mines told the representative unions for the gold mining sector on Tuesday that the sector was experiencing its worst crisis for the past 44 years. Three unions — Solidarity, the National Union of Mineworkers and the United Association of South Africa — have started talks with the chamber regarding wages and other conditions of employment.
Nearly 100 refugees from various African countries are being detained in Zimbabwe as part of an ongoing police blitz in illegal housing, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. ”Operation Restore Order”, backed by President Robert Mugabe, is believed to have left an estimated 200 000 people homeless and bread supplies scarce.
An 87-year-old Australian man fought off an intruder with his shoe after being attacked in his home, reports said on Tuesday. ”I took the bloody shoe off and thumped him,” semi-retired horse trainer Johnny Oswin was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press.
Absa and Barclays appear confident that they will get the necessary shareholder support for Barclays to acquire the 60% stake it is seeking in the South African bank. Absa shareholders on Monday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a scheme proposed by Barclays to acquire 32% of all Absa ordinary shares.
South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk dismissed reports that Zimbabwe’s Gona-re-Zhou National Park — which forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park across sections of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — has been plagued by a huge amount of poaching.
Appearing by turns pensive and quizzical, Saddam Hussein returned to public view on Monday when Iraq’s special tribunal released video images of the former president being interrogated. A tribunal statement said he was being questioned about a 1982 massacre at a Shia village north of Baghdad, one of the cases expected to arise at his trial.
Concerned that his pate is starting to resemble an old cricket pitch that’s devoid of turf, champion legspinner Shane Warne is undergoing replacement treatment to regenerate his peroxided blond locks. The notoriously image-conscious Warne discovered he was losing his hair during a recent trip to a hairdresser.
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A decision to sack Deputy President Jacob Zuma after he was implicated in alleged corruption in the trial of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik could have dire consequences for the government and the African National Congress, said a political analyst on Monday.
Up to 1 000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim. Many of these ”lost boys”, some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah.
Michael Jackson, one of the world’s biggest pop stars, was acquitted on Monday on all charges of molesting a teenage boy at his Neverland ranch. The 46-year-old singer, who faced up to 18 years in prison had he been found guilty, reached for a tissue and wept as the clerk of the court finished reading the not guilty verdicts.