The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has invited Sudan to join the powerful oil-industry cartel, the official Suna news agency reported on Thursday. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo extended the invitation in a message delivered on Wednesday to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, the agency said.
While the public service has done much in forming legislative and regulatory frameworks and policies, it needs to put this into practice, the Public Service Commission said on Thursday. Releasing the fifth annual state of the public service report, Professor Stan Sangweni said it focused on the capacity of the public service to deliver on its programmes.
Blood-spattered bullet cases, boots and communication radios lay scattered on the street outside the justice ministry in Dili, East Timor on Thursday as the East Timorese capital descended into chaos. In the latest violence of days of clashes, 20 rapid-reaction police came under attack by rampaging rebel soldiers early on Thursday.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana was considering resuming public wage negotiations in the troubled security sector, provided no harm came to officials, the Department of Labour said on Thursday. ”I am tempted to allow my officials to go ahead with the hearings in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act,” Mdladlana said from Cape Town.
Cellphone operator Vodacom criticised draft interception legislation on Thursday for placing an onerous and expensive burden on the industry and clients. ”This proposed Act needs more careful thought in terms of its unintended consequences before becoming law,” Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig said in a statement.
The JSE was deep in the red in noon trade on Thursday as the sell-off that has characterized the market over the past two weeks continued. Dealers said that foreigners appeared to be offloading local stocks in a move linked to the change in emerging-market sentiment.
At least seven people were killed and 14 wounded on Thursday as clashes between radical Islamic forces and a United States-backed warlord alliance flared in the lawless Somalia capital, residents said. The two sides pounded each other with heavy machine guns, rockets, artillery and mortar fire in four residential districts in southern and northern Mogadishu.
The Wellington Hurricanes have sounded the battle cry ”Get McCaw” as they set their plan to target the All Blacks captain in the Super 14 rugby final against the Canterbury Crusaders at Jade Stadium in Christchurch on Saturday. The Crusaders have played in seven of the past eight finals, and won five of them.
Afghan troops, backed by coalition planes and artillery, battled a strong force of Taliban insurgents overnight and early on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, already reeling from some of the heaviest fighting in years. New fighting erupted late on Wednesday in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, a coalition spokesperson said.
Police increased security at Istanbul’s Atatürk International airport on Thursday as authorities and companies began to assess the huge damages caused by a raging fire and tried to determine what caused it. A hard-line Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility in an e-mail to a pro-Kurdish news agency.