A troika of laws under government review seek to further centralise political power by strengthening the government’s hold over its lower tiers. The Intergovernmental Relations Bill, amendments to the Public Service Act and the draft Municipal Employees Bill will enable the national government to set goals from the centre, monitor administration and exercise overall supervision of provincial government and local councillors.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says it remains committed to pursue its rolling mass action in support of the jobs and poverty campaign, which runs until February next year and includes periodic national stayaways as well as sectoral action.
Nearly 3 000 firefighters and soldiers on Tuesday battled dozens of wildfires that continued to rage in parched Portugal as police found the charred body an elderly woman near her rural home, emergency services said. Eleven fires were raging out of control in the centre and north of the country.
Just what is a bureaucrat to wear? Months after Japanese government staff were told to dress down for summer they are now being warned to wrap up for the autumn and winter in the country’s latest bid to save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
At a forest shrine lined with incense-burning urns, Japanese pilgrims enter a small cave where they stoop to wash coins and notes in trickling spring water. Cleanse your money here, the tradition goes, and it will multiply. The ritual dates back perhaps 700 years, and it says something about the Japanese view of money: an attitude far different from that of many Americans.
Computer wizards on Monday launched an online battle of the brains for cash and a chance at a career with United States internet search powerhouse Google, the company said. The qualification round of ”Code Jam 2005” commenced with geeks testing their programming prowess in a virtual tournament designed to uncover brilliant minds, said a Google official.
An ambulance followed by a mortuary van left the scene of a hostage-taking in Ga-Rankuwa on Tuesday with what is believed to be the body of a woman. Earlier, police task-team members were trying to gain access to the nurses’ residence at the George Mukhari hospital in Ga-Rankuwa where a man was holding two people hostage.
About 7 000 people have been left homeless by raging flood waters in southern Ethiopia after heavy rain caused rivers to burst their banks in the Horn of Africa’s Oromia state, official media reported on Monday. At least one person was swept away and killed by the water along with 23 livestock on Monday.
Former Truth and Reconciliation Commission chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu led talks to broker peace between two feuding factions of the three-million-member St John Apostolic Faith Mission Church on Tuesday. ”Lives have been threatened [during the feud],” said South African Council of Churches spokesperson Joe Mdhlela.
A rare Chinese tiger born in a zoo in China and sent to South Africa to be trained for a life in the wild has died, threatening a wildlife protection programme, an animal rights group said on Tuesday. Hope, a four-year-old male, died of pneumonia and heart failure on Saturday at the Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa.