India’s National Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi met former South African president Nelson Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on Wednesday. Gandhi said she was honoured to be meeting Mandela. ”It is a privilege — a visit to South Africa wouldn’t be complete without calling on Madiba,” she said.
The new chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, is prioritising the setting up of a free trade area (FTA) by next year, reports said on Wednesday. As the dust settles after a hectic SADC summit, Trade and Commerce Minister Felix Mutat has placed the establishment of the FTA on top of the agenda.
The South African Medical Association (Sama) said on Wednesday that the ”whistle-blowing” on the part of a doctor at East London’s Frere Hospital was an ethical and responsible intervention. Professor Denise White, acting chairperson of Sama, said investigations were needed to establish whether or not the rights of patients had been further violated.
A new set of photographs appeared to cast doubt on testimony by a senior police forensics expert in the Inge Lotz murder trial on Wednesday. The photographs were produced by the defence when Superintendent Stef Koekemoer, manager of the national fingerprint laboratory in Pretoria, was recalled to the stand for more questioning.
The N1 highway southbound near the John Vorster Avenue offramp in Centurion was re-opened to traffic on Wednesday after a toxic spill, Tshwane metro police said. Spokesperson Louise Britz said drivers had listened to radio reports advising the use of alternative routes and so there was no traffic back-up.
Eighty-nine people have died in flooding in Sudan as heavy rains that washed away homes and spread water-borne disease continue to batter the country, a government official said on Wednesday. Sudanese officials have described this year’s floods as the worst in living memory with unexpectedly early rains destroying more than 70Â 000 homes.
A man was killed and about 300 people were injured on Wednesday as a student protest that began at Bangladesh’s Dhaka University spread to other institutions in the city and across the country, witnesses said. The victim, a rickshaw-puller, was caught in clashes between police and students at a university in the north-western city of Rajshahi.
Nutrition is a supportive measure in dealing with infections such as HIV/Aids and tuberculosis (TB), meaning neither food nor food supplements are alternatives to drug therapy in treating people living with Aids, says a report released on Wednesday by the Academy of Science in South Africa (Assaf).
Surging demand from Asia and booming commodities prices have pushed BHP Billiton’s annual net profit up 28,4% to an all-time high of ,416-billion, the company announced on Wednesday. Underlying profit, the measure watched by analysts, rose by 35% to ,68-billion, just above the market consensus of ,5-billion.
A cracked pylon may have caused a fuel leak that led to the fire and explosion of the China Airlines Boeing 737-800 at Japan’s Naha airport two days ago, Taiwan media reported on Wednesday. The 157 passengers and eight crew escaped safely, barely three minutes before the jet caught fire and exploded into three parts.