A high court order interdicting striking security guards from any involvement in violence was granted to Metrorail and security employers on Wednesday. According to the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, it was interdicted from committing, orchestrating, promoting, encouraging, participating in or condoning acts of violence.
South Africa faces a massive task in reaching the Millennium Development Goals for child survival in 2015, with trends showing that the mortality rates of infants and children under the age of five were increasing rather than decreasing. ”Currently, the prospect of having to reduce the child-death figures … by two-thirds by 2015 seems dismal,” a two-day conference heard.
There is no crisis in the African National Congress, the party’s deputy president Jacob Zuma told the National Union of Mineworkers on Wednesday. ”Many commentators and analysts would have you believe that there is a crisis in the ANC,” Zuma told the 12th national congress of the union at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. ”That is not so. There is no crisis in the ruling party.”
The Gauteng provincial minister for Education, Angie Motshekga, on Wednesday condemned attempts by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) to disrupt schooling in the Gauteng province. ”Since the beginning of this week, members of Cosas have been disrupting schools,” the Gauteng Department of Education said in a statement.
Springbok rugby coach Jake White testified behind closed doors on Wednesday while former rugby boss Brian van Rooyen remained absent from a disciplinary inquiry, which is hearing corporate-mismanagement allegations against him. White was the day’s first witness at the closed hearing in Bloemfontein.
Since 1956, when Shell first struck oil in Nigeria, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant has never been under fire like it has since the beginning of the year, analysts said on Wednesday. Shell’s foray into Nigeria’s lucrative oil industry began with the historic feat of striking the first oil well in Oloibiri in present-day southern Bayelsa state.
The Turkish military released details on Wednesday of a collision between Turkish and Greek fighter jets in disputed airspace between the two Nato allies, saying that the Greek F-16 "harassed" the Turkish plane and crashed into it. A statement said two Turkish F-16s and an F-4, "on a routine training flight", were confronted by two Greek F-16s.
Opponents to Montenegro’s push for nationhood said they would lodge a formal protest on Wednesday against its historic vote for independence, alleging irregularities. ”We must eliminate any doubt about the referendum,” said Predrag Bulatovic, the leader of a group of parties in favour of continuing the republic’s union with Serbia.
A Kenyan court on Wednesday charged a British aristocrat with murder in the fatal shooting of a trespasser on his ancestral ranch, the second killing he has been accused of in the past year. In a case that has reopened festering colonial-era resentments in Kenya’s central Rift Valley, Thomas Cholmondeley pleaded innocent to the charge.
World motorcycling champion Valentino Rossi said on Wednesday he would be sticking to two wheels and not joining the Ferrari team to race in Formula One. ”I will continue, at least for some time more, to race motorbikes,” the Italian told the official Ansa news agency.