Retailers in inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe on Tuesday shunned a new government order to slash the prices of basic goods such as bread and sugar, arguing that such a move would drive them out of business. Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu said price cuts of up to 50% had been ordered overnight.
Severe cold and more snow is to hit large parts of the country later on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South African Weather Service has warned. It said temperatures will drop as low as minus nine degrees Celsius in places such as Sutherland in the Northern Cape. The town was blanketed in snow on Monday.
A regional chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa), Thabo Thakalekola, was on Monday night released from jail in Maseru on R1 000 bail, following his arrest last Friday by the Lesotho mounted police on charges of treason. Thakalekola is a freelance journalist and radio presenter.
Former world number one Marat Safin defeated South African Rik de Voest in straight sets on Tuesday to book a place in the second round at Wimbledon. The Russian number 26 seed won 7-6 (7/5), 6-4, 7-5 in the first-round match on court 13 to secure a tie against Pakistan’s world number 279 Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi.
Wallabies players would be happy to kick the Springboks out of the Tri-Nations and instead play an extra Test against the All Blacks following South Africa’s decision to send an under-strength team on tour to Australia and New Zealand. Springbok coach Jake White will leave key players at home.
Sachin Tendulkar’s 99 was the centrepiece of India’s 242 for eight in the first one-day international against South Africa at Stormont here Tuesday. But India might have expected to finish with a higher total, having been 181 for two heading into the final 10 overs.
A Cape Town woman on Tuesday continued her testimony about her horror taxi ride at the hands of a ”taxi conductor”. One of the two women named in the case, Lorraine Pindela, told the Cape Town Regional Court the shock of the ordeal caused her to menstruate in the taxi.
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town was packed to capacity on Tuesday during the bail application of Najwa Petersen, who is alleged to have murdered her husband, popular entertainer Taliep Petersen. Magistrate Jackie Redelinghuys postponed the combined bail application of Petersen and her three alleged accomplices.
The centuries-old search for the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have reigned as a pharaoh in Egypt, may finally have ended. Egypt’s antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass will announce in Cairo on Wednesday ”the most important find in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun” in 1922.
A high-school teacher and a journalist were given jail terms on Tuesday for insulting Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Touré, judicial sources said, in a case that has raised questions over press freedom in that country. Four other journalists charged with defaming the president were given suspended sentences in the case.