The Zimbabwe government has denied claims by the main labour union that more than a dozen of its members were assaulted in police custody following foiled street protests last month, it was reported Friday. Members of the union were injured while trying to resist arrest by jumping off police vehicles, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Reuben Marumahoko told Parliament on Thursday.
Former teammates and coaches have hailed Fabien Barthez as a goalkeeping genius after he announced his retirement from football on Thursday. ”Fabien informed me of his decision 10 days ago. To me, he is the greatest goalkeeper France have had,” Toulouse coach Elie Baup, who gave Barthez his professional debut in 1990, told French sports daily L’Equipe on Friday.
Fifty two percent of South African employees who were booked off sick this winter had respiratory illnesses, which included influenza, a survey released on Friday revealed. An analysis made of 60 South African companies with a total of 7Â 000 employees revealed that out of 2Â 877 people who took time off between May and August this year, 1Â 489 had flu.
Zambia’s main opposition party on Friday mounted its first challenge to the government after losing general elections on September 28, which it claims were rigged, by insisting it had the authority to clear land deeds. The Patriotic Front of veteran opposition leader Michael Sata, who was beaten by President Levy Mwanawasa in the presidential election, said it would exert its authority.
For the African National Congress to remain a national movement it must ensure that both socialists and nationalists have a place in the party, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch at the presidential guesthouse in Pretoria of the second of five volumes of The Road to Democracy in South Africa.
Deep in the days of apartheid, Italian yacht captain Salvatore Sarno started teaching a small group of black children to sail off the coast of South Africa and was laughed at for trying to cross the race barrier. Sixteen years later he is leading Shosholoza, Africa’s first America’s Cup challenger, proudly presenting a multi-race team to show how far his adopted country has come.
Since his arrival at Tottenham Hotspur, Didier Zokora has often looked like a man who couldn’t pass a leg of lamb without feeling the urge to fling himself over it. Last Sunday at White Hart Lane he excelled himself, crumpling to the ground to earn a match-winning penalty under a tackle from Portsmouth’s Pedro Mendes that wasn’t so much a challenge as a diffident inquiry.
A stiff handshake as each tried to stare the other down and then, to the relief of chess fans, the familiar push of a pawn. Three hours later, an uneventful 31-move draw left Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik 3,5 to 2,5 ahead of Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov with six games left in their -million world title unification match.
Over the past 10 years there have been times when it seemed the Currie Cup was about to die. No one cared about the oldest provincial rugby competition in the world because it was at the wrong end of the season and either through injury or exclusion clauses it tended not to feature the best players in the country.
Beach soccer spin doctors may credit former Manchester United striker Eric Cantona for helping spread the game around the globe, but the man doing that job in Durban last week during the African leg of the Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers was, undoubtedly, Côte d’Ivoire’s Frederic Aka — without any pseudo-philosophical twaddle about seagulls, trawlers and sardines, thankfully.