President Jacob Zuma and Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele have conveyed condolences to the families of nine children killed in a collision between a mini-bus taxi and a train in the Western Cape this morning (Wednesday, 25 August 2010). According to preliminary reports, the collision occurred when a mini-bus taxi collided with a train at the Buttskop level crossing between Blackheath and Melton Rose Stations in the Western Cape, which left nine children dead. The mini-bus taxi was transporting 13 children to school. The taxi driver and four children were critically injured and were taken to hospital. No injuries were reported... Continue Reading
The leading German academic exchange program, the DAAD, will hold a workshop in Accra, Ghana to address quality assurance in higher education. Ghana’s Ministry of Education and other critical national organisations are partners in the seminar, which will begin on August 30. The program will examine current challenges in quality assurance, as well as strive for regional cooperation in this area. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), and the Ministry of Education, National Accreditation Board (NAB), Ghana are jointly organizing a Workshop under the title ”Harmonization and Quality Assurance in the Ghanaian Higher... Continue Reading
MOGADISHU – Veteran radio journalist Barkhat Awale was killed by crossfire today in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, according to local journalists and news reports. He is the second journalist killed on duty in Somalia this year, according to CPJ research. Awale, 60, director of the community radio station Hurma Radio, was on the roof of the station assisting a technician in fixing the station’s transmitter when a stray bullet hit him in the stomach, local journalists told CPJ. His colleagues rushed him to Madina Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. Awale’s death came during some of the most... Continue Reading
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Islamist militants wearing Somali military uniforms stormed a hotel favored by lawmakers in the war-battered capital Tuesday, firing indiscriminately and killing 32 people, including six parliamentarians. A suicide bomber and one of the gunmen was also killed in the brazen attack just a half-mile (1 kilometer) from the presidential palace. The attack showed the insurgent group al-Shabab, which controls wide areas of Somalia, can penetrate even the few blocks of the capital under the control of the government and African Union troops.
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Former trade-unionist, Gibson Sibanda, a veteran labor activist and co-founder of Zimbabwe’s former opposition party, has died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 66, MDC-M has said. In 2005, Sibanda left Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change over sharp policy differences, and joined the Mutambara-led MDC. He had been deputy leader in Tsvangirai’s party until he joined a breakaway faction and became a senator in the Harare parliament and a minister of state for the splinter group after disputed elections in 2008. As a labor leader in the colonial era before... Continue Reading
