African National Congress (ANC) MP James Ngculu ousted Western Cape ANC chairperson Ibrahim Rasool from his post following an election at the party’s provincial congress on Saturday. Ngculu, who chairs the National Assembly’s health committee, won the election by 274 to 259 votes.
The squeaky-clean image of tennis is at risk as the sport braces itself for a court case which threatens to expose match-fixing by top players. Irakli Labadze, a Georgian last year ranked 42nd in the world, will be accused at a court hearing in Austria this week of conspiring with a professional gambler to make money by ”throwing” a match.
South Africa beat Uruguay 134-3 in the one-off rugby Test played at the Absa Stadium in East London on Saturday afternoon. The Springboks led 56-3 at halftime. The result represents a Springbok record for points scored in a Test match, surpassing the 101-0 thrashing dished out to Italy in Durban in 1999.
Head coach Clive Woodward said that the British and Irish Lions tour had reached a make-or-break point after his side were tamed on Saturday in a shock 13-19 defeat by the New Zealand Maori. Woodward, the mastermind behind England’s World Cup success, has his heart set on a Lions Test series win in New Zealand, rating it as the pinnacle of achievement in rugby.
A historic deal to free more than 30 poor countries from the crippling shackles of debt to the West was hailed by Bob Geldof on Saturday as a ”victory for millions”. The -billion settlement, which will immediately benefit countries from Ethiopia and Uganda to Rwanda and Mozambique, was the beginning rather than the end, the campaigning rock star said.
Armed robbers hit the Mail & Guardian in Milpark, Johannesburg, on Saturday night and made off with almost every single computer in the building. Chief operation officer Hoosain Karjieker said an armed gang of ten men held-up security guards at the Media Mill office park, and then forced them to open the door to the Mail & Guardian‘s office on Saturday night.
Participants at the second national Aids conference that ended in Durban on Friday have hailed the event as a huge success. Professor Jerry Coovadia, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the conference was proof that South Africa was really a democracy because of the solidarity between academics, non-governmental organisations as well as the young and old.
Two employees of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) kidnapped in Ituri in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo are in good health but are still being held hostage, the organisation said on Friday. MSF ”again appeals for the immediate and unconditional liberation of its co-workers and is concerned about this prolonged captivity”, it said in a statement.
Police fought running battles on Saturday with supporters of a strike called to protest against the forced eviction of slum dwellers in Zimbabwe. Riot police fired tear gas at protesters in the Chitungwiza township south of the capital, Harare, according to one of the strike organisers.
It is one of the world’s most baffling puzzles, the bane of professional cryptologists and amateur sleuths who have spent 15 years trying to solve it. But the race to find the secrets of Kryptos, a sculpture inside a courtyard at the CIA’s heavily guarded headquarters in Langley, Virginia, may be reaching a climax.