The United States wants to settle the Iran nuclear crisis through diplomacy, President George Bush said on Monday, describing reports of plans to attack Iran as ”wild speculation”. While the White House is still warning Iran about its uranium enrichment, the administration went out of its way on Monday to play down reports of planning for military strikes.
The City of Cape Town’s municipal council has revoked former Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo’s decision to extend city manager Wallace Mgoqi’s contract for a year, meaning that Mgoqi is no longer the city manager for Cape Town, new Mayor Helen Zille said in a statement on Monday.
Anti-poverty campaigner and Live 8 organiser Sir Bob Geldof accused China on Monday of being responsible for the continuing civil war in Sudan’s Darfur region. The Irish rock star said China was protecting the Sudanese government because it provides 6% of China’s oil.
A hundred and thirteen people were injured in a four-bus pile-up on the Moloto Road, north of Pretoria, on Monday. The accident happened at a depot where three of the buses were stopped when a fourth bus hit one bus from behind, causing each to ram the vehicle in front of it.
Italy’s centre-left opposition on Monday ousted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after an acrimonious election campaign, exit polls showed, ending the tycoon’s flamboyant five-year hold on power. While officials of Romani Prodi’s campaign refused to declare victory, supporters flocked to his campaign’s headquarters voicing both jubilation and relief.
At least 100 people were killed on Monday when a fire swept through large tents packed with shoppers at a trade fair in north India, police said. ”At least 100 people are dead,” Rajiv Sabarwal, police chief of Meerut, 80km north of New Delhi, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Witnesses said bodies were charred beyond recognition and had been scattered throughout the stalls.
The opposition Democratic Alliance will on Tuesday submit a private member’s Bill in Parliament that seeks to amend the Constitution so as to disallow public representatives from becoming a member of another party while retaining their seats — so-called ”floor-crossing”, according to DA head Tony Leon.
Colleagues and families are increasingly the targets of stressed of police members, a psychologist said recently. Christine Jordaan, who has treated more than 900 police members for post-traumatic stress disorder, also warned that recent incidents, in which two policemen went on killing sprees that resulted in 11 deaths, could spark a ”suicide epidemic”.
The top-ranking United States senator on Monday downplayed as ”overstated” media reports saying US President George Bush was planning military options to knock out Iran’s nuclear programme, but stopped short of denying them outright. ”We believe there has been much overstatement in the American press over the last several days with regard to the use of military force in Iran,” Senate majority leader Bill Frist said.
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A second church pastor told the Johannesburg High Court on Monday that he was accused of rape by Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser. The only reason that pastor Peete Mbambo could think of for this was that he was putting pressure on her to produce a matric certificate to further her studies. He had helped her process her application to become a pastor.