Having completed their Tri-Nations campaign in Christchurch on Saturday, the Springboks will now turn their attention to France and the World Cup, starting in Paris in September. While the 1995 world champions failed to make a telling impact on the southern hemisphere rugby championship, coach Jake White will be fairly happy with his team’s performance.
The JSE is following a trend where overseas markets are generally lower, and with the all-share down 1,01%, the local bourse seems to be sitting and waiting for United States markets to open as well as the release later of US data. At 12pm, the all-share index was 1,01% weaker at 29 565,770.
Standard Chartered Bank has been named the Best Emerging Markets Bank, one of the top global awards at the 2007 Euromoney Awards for Excellence. Standard Chartered also won a regional award for the Best Bank in Africa and a country award for the Best Bank in Ghana.
Australia have brought back fullback Chris Latham for the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup showdown against the All Blacks in Auckland on Saturday. Latham has been bracketed with Adam Ashley-Cooper and could be played off the bench if coach John Connolly judges he is not yet ready for the starting lineup.
Britain has declared diplomatic war on Russia by expelling four envoys from London and failing to respect Moscow’s constitutional ban on extradition, Russian newspapers said on Tuesday. Commentators accused Britain of double standards for punishing Russia over its refusal to hand over the chief suspect in the murder of former agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Zimbabwe, who have been out of Test cricket since January 2006, have dropped out of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) test rankings list. Zimbabwe do not figure in the ICC’s annual list released on Monday because they have played two Tests fewer than the minimum of 10 required for inclusion in the table.
British actor Ian McKellen on Tuesday urged tightly-governed Singapore to loosen up and repeal its archaic laws barring homosexual acts. The openly gay McKellen indicated the laws may affect a vibrant business city like Singapore, which is vying with other Asian cities to draw more foreign talent and professionals.
Thousands of children still figure among the ranks of the Chadian army and the government has done nothing to honour its promise to demobilise them. ”The Chadian government is failing on its promise to remove children from its armed forces,” said Peter Takirambudde, Human Rights Watch’s Africa director.
World champion Gerhard Zandberg of South Africa won two gold medals in swimming at the All African Games on Monday, setting a competition record in the 50m backstroke and helping his team to victory in the 400m freestyle relay. Zandberg won the backstroke in 25,68 seconds, edging Egypt’s Ahmed Hussein and Kenyan Jason Dunford.
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Nelson Mandela’s July 18 birthday is annual cause for celebration in South Africa and draws attention from his many local and international admirers. This year, the partying also has a serious side, with the launch on Wednesday — Mandela’s 89th birthday — of a humanitarian campaign.