At least eight people were killed in attacks in southern and central Somalia, during which four people were also wounded, witnesses said on Tuesday. In a one-hour gun battle between 40 heavily armed insurgents and government soldiers in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, two men and a four year-old child were killed, said Abdi Mo’alin Mohamed, a clan elder.
Old habits die hard and that’s certainly the case for former triple Formula One champion Nelson Piquet, who has lost his driving licence for repeated speeding offences. As punishment the 54-year-old Brazilian has had to suffer the indignity of being sent back to school to brush up on the rules of the road.
Claims that a killer shark has been spotted off the English coast were dismissed on Tuesday as alarmist, just as holidaymakers head en masse for the seaside. The scare started after a tourist took pictures of a menacing-looking fin jutting from the water last week, 180m from the beach near the popular Cornish resort of St Ives.
The issue of savings in South Africa was not just an economic question, but also a matter of changing attitudes, said director general of the National Treasury, Lesetja Kganyago, on Tuesday. "We must ask as South Africans why are we consuming more than we are earning?"
The trial of the four travel agents still standing in the parliamentary travel-voucher fraud case will only start next year, it emerged on Tuesday. The four, Soraya Beukes, Mpho Lebelo, Graham Geduldt and Estelle Aggujaro, made a brief appearance in the Cape High Court for yet another postponement.
Lesotho needs ,9-million to help feed more than a third of its population after the country’s crop was destroyed by a prolonged dry spell during the 2006/07 cropping season, the United Nations said on Tuesday. About 550 000 people out of 1,8-million in Lesotho will need food aid between now and the next harvest in May next year, the UN said.
A French trade union leader on Tuesday warned that the Rugby World Cup could be disrupted by industrial unrest unless the government changes a Bill intended to limit the impact of transport strikes. Bernard Thibault, of the General Labour Confederation, said the Bill was an ”intimidatory measure” because it restricted the right to strike.
Zimbabwe’s central bank on Tuesday introduced yet another higher denomination banknote as it grappled with runaway inflation that is rendering lower-value banknotes useless. The new ZÂ 000 bearer cheque is the latest addition to a series of temporary bank notes introduced as a stop-gap measure at the height of a critical shortage of bank notes.
A policy review process, which includes questions on whether provincial government should even exist, was launched by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi in Pretoria on Tuesday. ”We have to have a re-look at the way powers and functions have been distributed across the three spheres of government,” Mufamadi said.
About 11Â 000 South African miners working for De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond company, planned to launch an indefinite strike on Tuesday in a dispute over pay, their union spokesperson said. "The strike action will go ahead as planned," National Union of Mineworkers spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.