Springbok captain Johann Muller said referees are afraid of sin-binning All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw following his team’s 33-6 Tri-Nations defeat on Saturday. He said referee Stuart Dickinson should have yellow-carded the All Black captain for an identical offence to one that later led to the sin-binning of South Africa’s Pedrie Wannenburg.
South African politician-turned-tycoon Tokyo Sexwale said on Saturday the country’s president has a tough and thankless job, shying away from saying if he would make a run for the presidency. ”It’s not an easy job to do. Look at Thabo Mbeki. It’s a tough job … and a thankless job,” Sexwale said.
Nine young girls have been found dead around South Africa in the past seven months after they had been reported missing. The nine comprise the most widely publicised cases. The most recent find was the decomposed body of Elizabeth Martin (13), found in a water tank at a farm in Leeu-Gamka in the Western Cape.
Japan’s capital braced for a powerful typhoon on Sunday that killed five people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate across the country. Authorities warned that Typhoon Man-Yi, packing sustained winds of 108km/h and gusts of up to 162km/h, could continue to wreak havoc as it moved up the Pacific coast toward Tokyo.
Religious groups protested against late-night pornography screened on e.tv outside the broadcaster’s Cape Town offices on Saturday. ”We have had enough! Porn on free-to-air national television is outrageous,” said Taryn Hodgson, the international coordinator of the Christian Action Network.
Three Cabinet ministers and two deputies were nominated for the central committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the party’s 12th national congress on Saturday. Meanwhile, ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma told the congress that the ”revolution is going through a test”.
Two thousand Indian schoolchildren began a televised battle on Saturday night to win five scholarships to English universities, in the first instalment of a new prime-time show tipped to grip the nation this summer. Broadcasters expect <i>Scholar Hunt: Destination UK</i> to attract large Saturday-night audiences.
The main beneficiaries of economic transformation are white capitalists who remain the ”induna [chief]” while the black middle class holds jobs in human resources, Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the national congress of the South African Communist Party on Saturday.
Police arrested seven protesters at Soweto’s Jabulani hostel alone on Saturday for public violence in a demonstration over housing. Arrests were also made elsewhere in Soweto and in Alexandra, but the exact numbers were not yet known. Metro police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters from the Nancefield and Dobsonville hostels.
Russia suspended its participation in a key pact limiting military forces in Europe on Saturday, fulfilling a threat after months of verbal sparring with the West. The suspension comes amid worsening relations with Europe and Washington on a range of fronts, including United States plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe.