Leading 22-15 at half-time, Western Province, in spite of trailing 25-22 for all of 22 minutes during the second half, squeezed home 30-25 in a closely fought Currie Cup fixture played in Kimberley on Saturday. Scoring their match-winning and bonus-point-earning fourth try with 10 minutes remaining, Province returned home with a full-house five points.
Scotland ran in five tries but had to repel Ireland’s second-half fightback to win 31-21 in their World Cup warm-up at Murrayfield on Saturday. Scotland led 19-6 at half-time with tries from Ally Hogg, Andy Henderson and Euan Murray, Ireland replying with two penalties from Paddy Wallace.
The Golden Lions secured a hard-fought win of 15-10 over a gallant Boland Cavaliers side in a mud bath in Wellington after leading 7-3 at half-time. With playing conditions almost impossible and several spots on the field ankle deep with water, both sides made several handling errors that led to scrum after scrum.
The governor and police chief of Iraq’s southern Diwaniya province were killed in a roadside bombing on Saturday, police said. Police said the two men had been returning to Diwaniya, the provincial capital, from a funeral for a leading tribal sheikh 30km east of the city when the bomb hit their convoy of four-wheel drives.
Failure to elect an African National Congress (ANC) leadership that respects the party’s branches and the tripartite alliance would lead to a right-wing victory within the ruling party, Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said on Saturday.
South Africa have left batsman Jacques Kallis out of the squad for next month’s Twenty20 World Championship that they are hosting, it was announced on Saturday. Kallis, South Africa’s leading run-scorer in Tests and one-day internationals, has been criticised in the past for slow scoring in limited-overs matches.
The co-founder of the British record label that launched the careers of seminal bands including Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays died on August 10 at the age of 57, a hospital spokesperson said. Anthony Wilson announced earlier this year that he had kidney cancer.
Sierra Leoneans queued in ramshackle cities and jungle villages on Saturday to vote in their first elections since United Nations peacekeepers left two years ago, a test of the nation’s recovery from a 1991 to 2002 civil war. Torrential rains cleared overnight in the capital, Freetown, and hundreds of people lined up around the block at several polling stations.
Former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired for her inability to work as part of the ”collective” and for undertaking a trip to Madrid against President Thabo Mbeki’s orders. This is according to the letter Mbeki sent to Madlala-Routledge on Wednesday firing her. The Presidency released the letter on Saturday to ”prevent further speculation.”
Gang fighting entered its sixth day in the anarchic oil city of Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria on Saturday with authorities acknowledging 11 deaths and residents and media putting the toll much higher. Residents and security sources gave conflicting reasons for the gang war that erupted on Monday and has spread all over the city.