The reputation of the United Nations was dealt a severe blow on Monday when an independent inquiry accused one of its most senior officials, Benon Sevan, of corruptly receiving  184 to help to facilitate an oil deal. Sevan, a UN official for 40 years, resigned on Sunday ahead of publication of the report. He denies the claims.
On Tuesday, South Africans can celebrate National Women’s Day for the 11th time, in remembrance of the 20Â 000 women of all races who marched on August 9 1956 to the Union Buildings, to protest the extension of pass laws for African women. The Mail & Guardian Online asked some South Africans about the meaning of Women’s Day.
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At least 10 people have drowned and more are missing after weekend flooding that destroyed a bridge and a residential area of the town of Jalingo in north-eastern Nigeria, a government official said on Monday. Nigerian press reports said that as many as 50 people may have drowned.
A United Nations human rights expert on Monday sharply criticised major African leaders, saying their failure to condemn President Robert Mugabe’s housing demolition campaign in Zimbabwe is tantamount to a ”cover-up”. ”The silence of major governments in Africa continues to be shocking,” Miloon Kothari told journalists.
While a strike by 75% of South Africa’s gold miners continues, gold miner AngloGold Ashanti on Monday announced a higher wage increase for its employees. About 80Â 000 mineworkers belonging to the National Union of Mineworkers walked off the job on Sunday, the first strike in the industry since 1987.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday he regrets that Iran began conversion activities before the agency’s surveillance system could be tested on site. Iran on Monday resumed uranium conversion at its nuclear facility in Isfahan.
Aid workers say the food crisis in Mali is raging largely unnoticed by a world preoccupied with hunger in next-door Niger. There are fears of a replay of the drama in Niger, where the world ignored repeated warnings and only rushed in when images of starving children hit the airwaves.
Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo has fired her media adviser Blackman Ngoro over his controversial website remarks about coloureds. Mfeketo made the announcement on Monday after receiving the report of an internal council inquiry, saying the affair has ”really created racial disharmony” in the city.
A meeting between striking municipal workers’ unions and the South African Local Government Association continued on Monday afternoon with no new developments, a union spokesperson said. In KwaZulu-Natal, police arrested 43 striking municipal employees on Monday, as striking Samwu members took to the streets.