The South African Municipal Workers’ Union on Friday threatened to go on strike if Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride was not suspended. ”We are going to say to the municipality, suspend Robert McBride or municipal service delivery is going to be hampered,” said Samwu branch secretary Koena Ramotlou.
Manchester United will tour South Africa in 2008 after admitting that Africa and Asia, rather than the United States, are the regions where their fan-base is most fanatical. The Premiership champions, currently in Asia on a four-leg pre-season tour, were due to land in Macau on Saturday after wowing fans in Tokyo and Seoul.
Justine Robbeson, African record holder in the women’s javelin, won South Africa’s first athletics gold medal at the All Africa Games on Friday with a throw of 58,09m. Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the world number one 800m athlete of 2006, was pipped at the post in a thrilling 800m final by an 18-year old Sudanese athlete, Abu Bakr Kaki.
At what point does the columnist stop being a critic and become merely critical? It is an upsetting moment, when the writer who likes to believe that he is creating small, diverting illuminations on the endlessly reproduced pages of our national manuscript looks up from his doodling, lays down his gold leaf and purple ink, and discovers that he is merely drawing unremarkable cartoons of mediocre grumpiness.
The Mail & Guardian newspaper on Friday denied disregarding an interdict barring it from publishing the details of a draft internal report into alleged abuse of power at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. ”We completely deny it … we have a paper trail of every step taken to comply with the order,” said M&G editor Ferial Haffajee.
Diamond beneficiation, whereby stones mined in South Africa are also cut and polished in the country, will be enforced, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Friday. She said was seriously concerned about De Beers’ director Jonathan Oppenheimer’s comments on the costs of beneficiation earlier this week.
Mobs burned down houses in Shi’ite neighbourhoods of Nigeria’s main Islamic city on Friday in apparent reprisal for the murder this week of a radical Sunni Muslim cleric, witnesses said. Hundreds of people stormed through Shi’ite neighbourhoods of the city ”and started burning down the houses in anger”, a witness told the media by phone.
Long, chaotic lines of vehicles built up on Friday at the few gas stations still supplying fuel after the government banned a hard-currency coupon gas-purchasing system used by well-to-do Zimbabweans. The worsening gasoline shortages caused panic among drivers on Friday.
South African authorities would adopt a wait-and-see approach before deciding whether or not to seek businessman Billy Rautenbach’s extradition from Zimbabwe. This comes as Rautenbach, best known in South Africa and Botswana for his activities in assembling Hyundai cars, was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and deported to Zimbabwe.
Ernie Els turned the air blue in frustration as putting woes continued to hamper his attempts to force his way on to the leaderboard at the Open Championship on Friday. The big South African has yet to win this year. But he had come into the tournament with high hopes of challenging after rediscovering his form in the Scottish Open.