Truck drivers ended their six-day strike on Tuesday with the signing of a wage agreement. Supermarket shelves were without many product lines and some petrol stations in Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal were out of fuel by the time the truck drivers’ sometimes violence-marred strike entered its sixth day on Tuesday.
Nearly 4 000 members of one of the half-dozen armed bands operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) violence-ridden Ituri region have begun to lay down their arms in a move hailed as a breakthrough. But the United Nations on Tuesday acccused another group of continuing to commit atrocities in the north-eastern region.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on Tuesday began a three-day state visit to Botswana to develop trade and economic cooperation between the Southern African neighbours. Botswana’s ambassador to Zambia, Zibani Nthakhwane, said the main focus of the visit will be trade and developing the first road link between the two neighbours.
President Thabo Mbeki and Anglo American’s top executives met behind close doors at Mbeki’s home in Cape Town on Tuesday. Anglo American chief executive Tony Trahar, accompanied by Anglo American South Africa’s newly appointed CE, Lazarus Zim, and chairperson Mark Moody-Stuart, requested the meeting to discuss the company’s financial results.
Italy’s foreign affairs minister said on Tuesday that United States troops killed an Italian intelligence officer by accident, but disputed Washington’s version of events and demanded US authorities thoroughly investigate the incident. The minister said the car carrying the officer and an ex-hostage to freedom was not speeding and US troops did not order it to stop.
Local mobile operator MTN announced on Tuesday that it has joined the Proudly South African campaign. As its members, the campaign lists a number of the country’s original initiatives, companies and organisations — both civil and corporate — who have all pledged to serve the citizens of South Africa with the best products and services.
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Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik backdated two documents to gain financial benefits from French arms company Thomson CSF, the Durban High Court heard on Tuesday. The documents related to a service-provider agreement between Shaik and Thomson, which the state alleges was part of a bribe Shaik solicited for Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
Red tape is the biggest constraint to the expansion of business in South Africa, according to Grant Thornton’s 2005 international business owners survey. Forty one percent of business owners in South Africa cite regulation and red tape as the biggest constraint to the growth of their business, up from 34% last year.
The results of a CT scan done on King Tutankhamun’s mummy indicate the boy king was not murdered, but may have suffered a badly broken leg shortly before his death at age 19 — a wound that could have become infected, Egypt’s top archaeologist said on Tuesday.
How is it, ask the cynics in Beijing, that the Chinese government can pass some of the most beautiful laws in the world yet end up with one of the ugliest environments? It is a question that has haunted leaders since Mao Zedong, who wrote poems as well as legislation in defence of a glorious natural landscape that he then went on to defile.