All Black scrumhalf Andy Ellis says the Crusaders don’t need any external motivation to lift their weary bodies for the Super 14 rugby final against the New South Wales Waratahs in Christchurch on Saturday. ”In finals week, there’s no problem in picking it up and getting excited,” Ellis explained.
An ancient gold cup mysteriously acquired by a British scrap metal dealer is to be sold at auction with an estimate of nearly -million, after languishing for years in a shoebox under its current owner’s bed. John Webber’s grandfather gave him the 14cm high mug in 1945 and long assumed that it was made from brass.
Seven refugee camps are to be set up around the country for foreigners who have fled xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the BBC reported on Wednesday. The holding camps will take up to 70Â 000 people from increasingly unsanitary conditions at temporary shelters put up around state and municipal buildings and police stations.
Johannesburg businessman Hugh Glenister’s bid to stop the government from disbanding the Scorpions has failed. The Pretoria High Court on Wednesday struck his application from the roll, saying it was not in its jurisdiction to rule on the matter.
The controversial fuel technology company Firepower, appears on the verge of collapse, with its offices abandoned in Perth and other parts of the world, and the company owing millions of dollars to rugby union players, the Western Force club, basketballers and other creditors.
An unidentified flying object exploded in mid-air over a southern Vietnamese island, state media said on Wednesday, a day after Cambodia’s air force retracted a report of a mysterious plane crash. Residents of Phu Quoc Island found shards of grey metal, including one 1,5m long.
Organisations are working to ensure that Burma cyclone survivors living with HIV are included in relief efforts.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union warned on Wednesday that a strike by
about 8 000 workers on the East Rand was set to continue. This comes after Ekurhuleni mayor Duma Nkosi refused to accept a memorandum from protesters outside his office in Germiston on Tuesday, saying their strike action was illegal.
Nigeria will press for compensation from the South African government for its citizens who were victims of xenophobic attacks in the country, Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe said late on Tuesday in Abuja. The minister said that although no Nigerian has been killed in the wave of the attacks, many of them lost their properties while others had had their shops looted.
The Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, dubbed ”Bumbling Bernier” by his critics, resigned on Tuesday after admitting that he left sensitive government documents at the home of his former girlfriend. Bernier (45) has come under criticism in recent weeks after it emerged that the woman concerned, Julie Couillard, had been involved in relationships with men linked to the Hells Angels.