A man was seriously injured when he was assaulted by a group of striking security guards in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The strikers had accused him of going to work while they were on strike. Striking guards handed over a memorandum to employers and insurers and marched to Johannesburg’s Park station.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to watching rugby, along comes another cricket team. As the Australian cricket team flew out of South Africa on Wednesday, bound for a two-Test series against Bangladesh, their Australasian cousins — the New Zealand cricket team — arrived here for a three-Test series against South Africa.
The first Private-Sector Conference on HIV/Aids was opened on Wednesday morning by Jerry Vilakazi, the new CEO of Business Unity South Africa (Busa), at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg. The conference was organised by the South African Coalition on HIV/Aids (Sabcoha).
The new Hamas-led Palestinian Cabinet said on Wednesday it faced a cash crisis as its foreign minister made unprecedented peace overtures to the United Nations. With Israel refusing to hand over customs duties and the West threatening to cut funding, new Prime Minister Ismail Haniya told the first regular meeting of his ministers that he would struggle to find the money to pay government employees.
Imran Farhat and Younis Khan hit half-centuries as Pakistan thrashed Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the second and final Test here on Wednesday to clinch the series 1-0. The tourists faced no difficult chasing a 183-run target on the third day as left-handed opener Farhat (65) and Younis (73 not out) batted confidently to ensure victory with a 114-run stand for the second wicket.
Diamond giant De Beers said on Wednesday it was finalising the sale of more than a quarter of its South African assets to black partners in a multi-million dollar deal, bowing to pressure to obtain more black ownership. ”De Beers and Ponahalo are pleased to announce that definitive transaction agreements have now been signed,” the company said in a statement issued in Johannesburg.
One street child — and not four as previously reported — died in a fire at midnight on Tuesday night in the vacant basement in which they were sleeping in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow district, police said. In another fire, a man burned to death after his room caught fire in a Yeoville basement, emergency services said.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla on Wednesday confirmed that she has accepted a request for long leave from embattled Cape Judge President John Hlophe. ”I am giving it. He is entitled to it [leave],” she said during a tea break at a Judicial Service Commission hearing.
Police statistics showed a correlation between a decrease in car theft and an increase in aggravated robbery, a study presented in Pretoria on Wednesday suggests. ”What does a car thief do when they are not stealing cars? My feeling is that they may be involved in other forms of criminal activity when they are not stealing cars,” said Institute for Security Studies researcher Antony Altbeker.
Police have confirmed that 121 skulls with mysterious saw marks that were found in a ravine in north-west China belonged to humans, state press reported on Wednesday. The skulls were found in plastic bags, along with fur and other bones, in a forested riverbank on Monday last week in Gansu province’s Tianzhu Tibetan autonomous county.