England’s Premiership soccer players will earn more than £1-billion for the first time next season thanks to television, sponsorship and merchandising deals, a top accountancy firm said on Thursday. Leading players could command as much as £200 000 per week — or a record £10-million a year.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Tuesday called opposition news channel Globovision an enemy of the state and said he would do what was needed to stop it from inciting violence. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched in Caracas in a fourth consecutive day of protests over Chávez’s closure of the RCTV network.
Maybe race is still too big an obsession for South Africans to have a reasonable discussion about it. Real, old-style racism has been driven underground — into private discussions around the braai fire and nasty little corners on the internet. Honest public discussion about race is rare.
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Why are there so few up-and-coming new career black academics at South African institutions? South African statistics (2004/05) show that 69,8% of the master’s/doctoral degrees in the country are held by whites. The entry requirement into professional academia is a doctorate, obtainable after 10 years of study. Securing financial support is one of the Âdispiriting battles
Ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was banned from politics for five years, along with 110 Thai Rak Thai (TRT) executives, after a top court dissolved the political party on Wednesday over electoral fraud. ”All of the TRT party executives at the time the wrongdoing was committed will be subject to the ban,” said one of the nine judges ruling on the party.
A public-service strike will go ahead this week despite government claims of progress in last-ditch efforts to resolve a wage impasse, union leaders said on Wednesday. ”The general strike is going ahead,” said Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States on Wednesday of restarting the arms race with its plans to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. ”I think that those who are professionally aware of this problem understand that there is nothing ludicrous about this issue because the arms race is starting again,” Lavrov said at a press conference.
Maria Sharapova showed little sign of shoulder trouble on Wednesday and reached the second round of the French Open by beating Emilie Loit of France 6-3, 7-6 (4). The second-ranked Russian wasted seven break points in the first game of the match, but then converted both of her opportunities in the third and fifth games.
Organisers of the annual Comrades Marathon have expressed concern over the possible effect the strike by public-sector workers may have on the event, the Daily News reported on Wednesday. It quoted Comrades Marathon Association chairperson Dave Dixon as saying: ”We’ve been keeping a close watch on the intended strike action by the civil servants.”