Mystery surrounds the reported discovery of what might be the largest diamond in the world. The stone, found in an unnamed North West mine, is believed to be twice the size of the world’s biggest, the Cullinan. A spokesperson for the mining company that made the discovery said the stone was excavated on Monday.
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Search warrants and not subpoenas were necessary to obtain documents from African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma, the state argued in the Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday. Wim Trengove argued that the lesser means of a subpoena would cause a ”high risk” of evidence being concealed or destroyed.
South Africa’s Health Department said on Tuesday it has recalled 20-million potentially defective condoms approved by an official accused of taking bribes from a manufacturer. Unsafe sex is especially risky in South Africa, which has one of the world’s highest HIV infection rates with an estimated 12% of its 47-million people infected with the virus.
Authorities in Angola have cleared about 50-million square metres of landmines under the country’s ongoing demining programme, state media reported on Tuesday. The coordinator of the executive demining commission, Joao Baptista Kussumua, made the statement at a ceremony to receive two demining machines donated by the Japanese government.
HIV has slashed life expectancy in Zimbabwe by up to 19 years for men and 22 years for women but births still outpace deaths, according to the first study to detail how the Aids pandemic has affected the country’s wider population. The study, led by Simon Gregson of Imperial College London, sought to gauge HIV’s impact on Zimbabwe to see if researchers got it right in 1989.
Fraud, theft and unauthorised spending are on the rise in government departments, according to a Public Service Commission (PSC) report tabled at Parliament on Tuesday. The PSC’s Report on Financial Misconduct for the 2005/06 Financial Year says this cost the taxpayer at least R45-million at the time.
After ending 1,5% higher on Monday, the JSE was back in the red on Tuesday morning following a decline in the Dow overnight. However, the local bourse was being cushioned somewhat by the softer rand and good interest in direct miners. By 12.11pm, the all-share index was off 0,15%.
South Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised (saa) basis rose by 4,5% in the second quarter of 2007 from 4,7% in the first quarter of 2007, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. This comes after GDP rose as high as 5,6% in the fourth quarter of last year.
Skippi, a wily kangaroo on the run since early August, was returned to his home at a petting zoo Monday in southern Germany, but not after a chase through the German Alps that left the animal with a strained leg. The injured marsupial was captured in a cornfield near Leutkirch im Allgaeu.
Forest fires that have killed at least 63 people in Greece raged for a fifth day on Tuesday, although they were not threatening any villages, a firefighters’ spokesperson said. ”At the moment there is no threat to the villages, but the direction of the wind is impossible to predict,” the spokesperson said.