Springboks coach Jake White on Thursday defended his controversial selection policy of bringing an under-strength squad to play the Wallabies and All Blacks in next month’s Tri-Nations Tests. The South Africans arrived in Sydney Thursday minus 24 leading players, who White said were either injured or being rested ahead of September’s World Cup in France.
A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Somalia’s chaotic capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday, witnesses said, just hours after two aid workers were shot dead in an overnight attack in the north of the country. One woman at the scene of the blast said a vehicle carrying troops through a northern district of the city was lifted into the air by the powerful explosion.
South Africa’s champion amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who runs with carbon-fibre blades below both knees, will take on Olympic and world 400m champion Jeremy Wariner in his international top-flight debut against able-bodied athletes. Pistorius is fighting for the right to compete in the Beijing Olympic Games.
Alt-X listed DataPro Group has obtained shareholder approval to change its name to Vox Telecom, the company said on Thursday. The change is consistent with the company’s strategy of positioning itself as an alternative telecom operator offering a broad portfolio of voice and data services, it said.
A properly implemented social-security system can benefit South Africa even more than it has Chile, Dr José Piñera — former presidential candidate and architect of Chile’s highly successful social-security system — said on Thursday. He said the spectre of bankrupt, government-run social-security systems is haunting the world.
Ethiopia said on Thursday it was making military preparations for any possible invasion by arch-foe and neighbour Eritrea, against whom it fought a devastating border war. ”It is deemed necessary to make the necessary military preparation for deterring a possible Eritrean invasion,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Parliament.
There were varying responses on Thursday from delegates who had attended African National Congress (ANC) policy conference ”commissions” to discuss the strategy and tactics document at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. A delegate from KwaZulu-Natal said there were different views from most of the delegates at the commission he attended.
Dina Rodrigues, the mastermind in the June 2005 murder of baby Jordan-Leigh Norton, was on Thursday sentenced to life in prison. Two of her co-accused, Sipho Mongezi Mfazwe and Mongezi Bobotyane, also received life sentences. The packed public gallery applauded the sentences loudly.
Beijing’s long-suffering taxi-drivers are in the cross-hairs once again — with shaved heads to be banned from the driving seat ahead of next year’s Beijing Olympics, a report said on Thursday. Just two months after women taxi drivers were banned from wearing "too-fancy" hairstyles, new rules will outlaw beards and shaved heads for the men.
The number of millionaires in the world increased by 8,3% in 2006, with about 9,5-million individuals now estimated to have more than -million in financial assets, a report said on Wednesday. The financial assets owned by the group totalled ,2-trillion, an increase of 11,4% from 2005.