It took less than a week for South African swimmers to appreciate how tough international competition will be at the Olympics in August. Last Sunday Swimming South Africa announced a record 21 swimmers had posted Olympic qualifying times. But by Wednesday many of these stars had bombed out of the World Short-Course Championships in Manchester.
One of the many joys attached to attending the Masters is watching the local television coverage. The biggest joy of all is the now established tradition that, starting on Monday at 6.30am, some poor sod masquerading as a traffic reporter has to set up a pitch at the side of the four-lane highway that runs menacingly in front of the Augusta National Golf Club.
Chaminda Vaas lost his nerves, but Shivnarine Chanderpaul kept his, and struck a four and a six off the last two balls to hand the West Indies a sensational one-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the first one-day international on Thursday. Chasing 236 for victory from their allocation of 50 overs, the West Indies entered the final over at Queen’s Park Oval needing 13 runs to win.
Britain’s Justin Rose reeled off six birdies in eight holes to share the first-round lead at the US Masters while Tiger Woods laboured to stay in touch on Thursday. Rose shrugged off two early bogeys to fire a four-under-par 68 in bright sunshine. He launched his sizzling run at the par-three sixth before ending the day level with South African Trevor Immelman.
A vast study of the plants and animals unique to Madagascar was published on Thursday in a bid to protect thousands of rare species found only on the large African island. The island is home to 2% of the Earth’s total biodiversity, and only in Madagascar can one find wild lemurs, among many other unique species.
The South African Reserve Bank will be hosting the first round of regional monetary policy forum (MPF) meetings in May 2008. "Monetary policy has an impact on everybody. The main objective of the MPF meetings is to enhance the transparency of the bank’s monetary policy decision-making process and accountability to the public," it said.
Elders from northern Uganda tried to meet fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony on Friday to salvage long-running peace talks after he delayed signing a deal to end one of Africa’s longest wars. The draft agreement between Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army and the government appeared to be near collapse.
Zulu queens spent R533 000 just on clothing between June and October last year, media reports said on Friday. This came as nearly R10-million was needed to avoid the collapse of some of the royal palaces. The spending spree emerged as the royal household appeared before the finance portfolio committee in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.
The discovery of a rare species of Indonesian frog that breathes without lungs could shed light on how evolution works, a scientist said on Friday. A dissection of the frog, found on Borneo island last August, showed it breathed entirely through its skin, biologist David Bickford said.
Johan Vega knows the Havana Golf Club well. Too well. He has played every bunker, green and fairway thousands of times and the course has become monotonous. Golfers like to tackle different courses but the club is Havana’s sole golf course and Vega (37) is Havana’s only golf instructor.