Springbok coach Jake White has hit back at critics of his selection of an under-strength Tri-Nations squad to tour Australia and New Zealand. ”I find it odd that I’m not allowed to take this squad overseas. We have to look at the bigger picture in a World Cup year and, besides, there are only three new caps in the squad,” White told reporters on Wednesday.
Thirty-eight homeless people are destitute after a fire destroyed the Salvation Army’s Goodwill House in Kimberley, a home spokesperson said on Wednesday. Salvation Army Captain Desiree Schrickker said the fire ravaged the house on Tuesday afternoon after a new homeless occupant tried to make a fire in the fire-place in the building.
Assets held by the world’s richest people rose by 11,4% last year, a study showed, but a slowing world economy might put a brake on the lavish expansion rate in coming years. Soaring commodity prices and equity markets and rapidly expanding emerging economies caused the global pool of wealth to expand to ,2-trillion at the end of 2006.
A man was killed and two were seriously injured when a truck plummeted from the M1 highway in Sandton on to a road beneath on Wednesday, Johannesburg Emergency Services said. Spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said the driver of a Clover Dairy truck lost control on the bridge over South Road just before 4pm.
Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Britain’s Prime Minister on Wednesday and promised changes after a decade of Labour Party rule marred by a lack of trust in the government since the Iraq war. On an emotional day, Blair went to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to Queen Elizabeth.
Eskom has expressed concern that the current cold weather will put additional pressure on an already tight electricity-supply system. ”We are currently experiencing an increase in electricity demand due to the weather. ”The cold was so severe that a new morning peak-demand record was set this morning [Wednesday],” the power utility said.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe threatened on Wednesday to seize mining firms and other companies if they persist with ”dirty tricks” and keep raising prices in the face of rampant inflation. ”This nonsense of price escalations must come to an end,” the 83-year-old head of state said.
A Kazakh court jailed more than a dozen health workers on Wednesday for infecting 78 babies with HIV/Aids, but provoked parents’ outrage for sparing senior officials. A group of medical workers went on trial in the southern city of Shymkent in January on charges of criminal negligence for allowing the children to be infected.
Somalia’s trade minister and former defence minister escaped assassination attempts, but two others were killed in the latest Iraq-style guerrilla attacks on government targets, witnesses said on Wednesday. A roadside bomb hit Trade Minister Abdullahi Ahmed Afrah’s convoy late on Tuesday in a busy north Mogadishu street.
Taxi drivers declared a truce on Wednesday against bus companies they claim are illegally poaching business from them along Johannesburg’s Louis Botha Avenue. This comes after a committee was formed to investigate the taxi operators’ claims and to verify the bus companies’ permits.