Companies guilty of corrupt practices will in future be blacklisted under resolutions adopted at the second anti-corruption conference in Pretoria on Wednesday. The conference also resolved to strengthen legislation to protect whistle-blowers and the capacity of law-enforcement agencies to seize assets obtained through elicit or corrupt means.
The board of directors of Natal Sharks and the South African Rugby Union have asked Kevin Putt to step down as head coach of the Sharks Super 12 regional team with immediate effect. Past home-grown Sharks and Springbok great Dick Muir has been asked to step into the breach and take over the reins as head coach.
Nine people were killed and four others seriously injured when a minibus overturned on the N1 between Richmond and Three Sisters on Wednesday, Northern Cape police said. Among the dead, seven were schoolgirls between the ages of 13 and 15, while the other two were adults.
South Sudan’s provisional government said on Wednesday it will stand by the controversial oil-exploration deal it has struck with a British company fronted by ex-England cricketer Phil Edmonds. But a consortium fronted by French group Total has claimed that it has rights over the area.
The Iranian government decided to enter into a fresh round of negotiations with Britain, France and Germany next month, aimed at resolving the nuclear stand-off, after a meeting with British, French and German officials in Paris on Wednesday. A European diplomat said: ”On balance, it is a reasonably positive outcome.”
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer is expected to walk out of a Japanese immigration centre on Thursday to begin a new life in Iceland, bringing to an end nine months of detention during which Washington has sought to extradite him to face charges of sanctions-busting. The move seems certain to dismay the United States.
Iraqi authorities on Wednesday claimed their biggest success for months in the gruelling campaign to quash the insurgency after Iraqi special police commandos backed by United States troops and helicopters raided what they called a ”major terror training camp” in the heart of the Sunni triangle.
An explosion rocked a BP oil refinery on Wednesday, injuring more than 100 people and sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky in a blast so thunderous it could be felt for kilometres. At least 14 people are feared dead. Workers were searching through rubble for survivors or bodies on Wednesday night.
The bitter and public family feud over the fate of a severely brain-damaged woman appeared to enter its final stages on Wednesday after the White House said it has done all it can to prolong the life of Terri Schiavo. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta has refused to order reconnection of Schiavo’s feeding tube.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, on the campaign trail ahead of next week’s parliamentary polls, on Wednesday accused former minister Jonathan Moyo of plotting a military coup to unseat him. Meanwhile, the huge numbers of British-based Zimbabwean exiles will watch the elections in their home country with keen interest.