It was a dark and stormy night in the Visdorp when the devil appeared to Joseph. ”Do you know who I am?” he asked. ”Gimme a hint,” said Joseph. The devil twirled his moustache and cried: ”I am the dark lord!” ”Just as I thought,” said Joseph. ”The bladdy CEO of Eskom.”
The African Union has asked Nato to prolong its mission in Sudan’s violence-wracked Darfur region to help back a peacekeeping operation there, an alliance spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”The AU has asked Nato to extend its current support to the end of September,” said spokesperson James Appathurai.
The White House on Wednesday vowed there would be no direct negotiations with Iran unless it suspends its uranium-enrichment programme. ”Iran has to take that fundamental step when it comes to enriching and reprocessing uranium,” White House spokesperson Tony Snow told reporters.
South African star all-rounder and vice-captain Jacques Kallis is to undergo surgery next week to repair the ”tennis elbow” injury that has plagued him since November last year. Physiotherapist Shane Jabaar said on Wednesday that this meant that Kallis was unlikely to tour Sri Lanka in August.
The Springboks will likely be without a host of top players when they clash with a World XV in their season-opener next Saturday, with captain John Smit the biggest casualty. Smit has been laid low by a recurring groin injury and his place will likely be taken by the Bulls’ Gary Botha, who had to return to Pretoria for personal reasons.
A high court order interdicting striking security guards from any involvement in violence was granted to Metrorail and security employers on Wednesday. According to the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, it was interdicted from committing, orchestrating, promoting, encouraging, participating in or condoning acts of violence.
The Gauteng provincial minister for Education, Angie Motshekga, on Wednesday condemned attempts by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) to disrupt schooling in the Gauteng province. ”Since the beginning of this week, members of Cosas have been disrupting schools,” the Gauteng Department of Education said in a statement.
Springbok rugby coach Jake White testified behind closed doors on Wednesday while former rugby boss Brian van Rooyen remained absent from a disciplinary inquiry, which is hearing corporate-mismanagement allegations against him. White was the day’s first witness at the closed hearing in Bloemfontein.
The Turkish military released details on Wednesday of a collision between Turkish and Greek fighter jets in disputed airspace between the two Nato allies, saying that the Greek F-16 "harassed" the Turkish plane and crashed into it. A statement said two Turkish F-16s and an F-4, "on a routine training flight", were confronted by two Greek F-16s.
A Kenyan court on Wednesday charged a British aristocrat with murder in the fatal shooting of a trespasser on his ancestral ranch, the second killing he has been accused of in the past year. In a case that has reopened festering colonial-era resentments in Kenya’s central Rift Valley, Thomas Cholmondeley pleaded innocent to the charge.