More than 20 000 workers are to get average wage hikes of 7,5% thanks to a deal signed by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the Automobile Manufacturers Employers’ Organisation. The agreement was signed in Pretoria after three months’ negotiations.
The campaign trail for Ghana’s general election in December is taking a detour through South Africa this week, with the visit of opposition leader John Evans Atta Mills. Addressing journalists in Johannesburg on Tuesday, the head of the National Democratic Congress sounded upbeat about his prospects in the poll.
A high level of violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe has made it ”increasingly difficult” for citizens to participate freely and fairly in elections next year, the Media Institute of Southern Africa said Wednesday. The institute released a report compiled after a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe in June.
The chief of police in Gujrat, the Pakistani city where two South Africans have been arrested along with a senior al-Qaeda terrorist, said on Wednesday maps of South African cities were found among items seized after the raid.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119832">’No comment’ on terror claims</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119792">’Terror’ pair under lock and key</a>
Tens of thousands of people marched on United Nations offices in Khartoum on Wednesday to protest last week’s Security Council resolution on Darfur, rejecting any foreign intervention in the war-torn province. One contingent of youths was wearing black shirts and red headbands marked ”Martyrs Brigades”.
Former housing minister Sankie Mthemba-Mahanyele is to ask the Constitutional Court for special leave to appeal a court ruling that she may not sue the Mail & Guardian for publishing a defamatory story about her. In a statement on Wednesday, Mthemba-Mahanyele welcomed a decision by the Supreme Court of Appeal that politicians did have standing to sue for defamation.
Thousands of flood victims in Bangladesh could die of disease unless urgent precautions are taken, the official news agency BSS on Wednesday quoted relief workers as saying. Relief workers predicted a ”severe” health situation, ”likely to claim the lives of thousands unless urgent precautions were taken”, BSS said.
At least 14 Iraqis were killed and 26 wounded in a roadside bomb blast and fierce clashes on Wednesday between Iraqi police and insurgents in the main northern city of Mosul, medics and police said. The fighting erupted at about midday local time south-west of Mosul on the west bank of the Tigris River.
Four Free State department of home affairs officials and a policeman appeared in the Ficksburg Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday on corruption charges, Free State police said. The five were arrested on Monday, bringing to 39 the number of people arrested since an investigation began into corruption at home affairs offices in the province.
Market participants have the impression that insider trading in South African has decreased, according to a report released on Wednesday. ”The new regime has changed prevailing attitudes to insider trading, resulted in new policies and approaches among listed corporates and their advisers,” said the chairperson of the Insider Trading Directorate.