Plans for South Africa’s first public naked bicycle ride, to protest against global warming, have fallen foul of the public-service strike. So, it appears, has a jobs-for-youth march that the African National Congress Youth League hoped to hold in central Cape Town on Wednesday.
Two-time defending champion Justine Henin and world number two Maria Sharapova stormed into the semifinals of the French Open on Tuesday in straight sets. Henin (25) gave United States star Serena Williams a lesson in clay-court tennis that had the Australian Open champion once again smashing her racket in frustration as she fell 6-4, 6-3 to the top seed.
United States President George Bush sought to calm Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Tuesday over plans for a US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, saying on the eve of a big-power summit that Russia had nothing to fear. The Kremlin leader reacted furiously to a US plan to site a radar system in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland.
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma on Tuesday declared his support for a call for press freedom in Zimbabwe. ”I support what the head of this organisation has said in terms of press freedom in Zimbabwe,” he told media representatives from around the world at a World Editors’ Forum lunch in Cape Town.
World leaders must follow a move by the United States to impose fresh sanctions against Sudan for its refusal to allow a major United Nations-led peacekeeping force into war-torn Darfur, South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said on Tuesday.
Newspapers hoping to retain their readers and survive in the technological age must venture into the online and mobile phone spheres, a World Association of Newspapers meeting heard in Cape Town on Tuesday. Speakers at a workshop said the newspaper was a dying breed but could avoid extinction by modernising its approach and extending its digital reach.
South African Airways (SAA) has paid R55-million in penalties imposed on it by the Competition Tribunal, the Competition Commission said on Tuesday. SAA made the payment on Friday, the Commission said in a statement. The penalties included two for R20-million and one for R15-million, concluded under a consent agreement between SAA and the commission, it said.
Samoa coach Michael Jones acclaimed South Africa on Tuesday as potentially the best side in the world after naming his team for Saturday’s one-off Test. ”To play against the might of the Springboks at Ellis Park is the ultimate and it will provide a benchmark for the players as we look at the bigger picture, which is the World Cup in September,” Jones told reporters.
Marking 40 years of Israeli occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday internal fighting had brought Palestinians to the brink of civil war. Yet Abbas, recalling what he described as the Arabs’ ”great defeat” by Israel in six days of war that began on June 5 1967, assured his people that statehood was within reach.
South Africa is on a strong financial footing, despite ”huge economic and social challenges”, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told an International Monetary Conference meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday. ”The economy is performing well, but we still have millions living in poverty and many more unable to get jobs,” Manuel said.