Wits and Benoni Premier played out a scrappy, goalless draw at the Bidvest Stadium in a Premier Soccer League clash on Friday night. Both teams created good scoring chances, but their finishing was poor as shots went either skyward or horribly wide. Wits lacked creativity, while Benoni seemed intent to walk the ball into the net.
There are 263 days still to go to the Iowa caucus, the traditional opening of the United States presidential race, and a further 281 days beyond that to the election itself. But there was no sense of that on the South Carolina University campus in the early hours of Friday morning.
Afghan officials have reprimanded British diplomats over a campaign by United Kingdom troops in Helmand telling farmers that growing poppies is understandable and acceptable. A radio message assured farmers that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force will not interfere with poppy fields being harvested.
Estonia’s Parliament was behind barricades on Saturday for the first time since Soviet tanks tried to crush the independence movement in 1991, as violence rocked Tallinn for a second night after the removal of a Soviet war memorial. Seventy-four people were injured, including nine police officers.
A boy was shot dead and two others wounded, allegedly by a man who had a quarrel with his brother, Eastern Cape police said on Friday. Captain Jackson Manatha said the three youngsters were shot at a homestead in Nxaxo near Centane in the old Transkei on Thursday night.
Mstislav Rostropovich played the cello with grace and verve — and lived his life offstage the same way. His death at age 80 takes away one of modern Russia’s most compelling figures, admired both for his musical mastery and his defiance of Soviet repression. Rostropovich stirred souls with playing that was both intense and seemingly effortless.
Mstislav Rostropovich played the cello with grace and verve — and lived his life offstage the same way. His death at age 80 takes away one of modern Russia’s most compelling figures, admired both for his musical mastery and his defiance of Soviet repression. Rostropovich stirred souls with playing that was both intense and seemingly effortless.
South African Airways (SAA) denied on Friday that it had paid large bonuses to executives when the airline was only marginally profitable. The bonuses were paid for the previous and profitable financial year. The Inkatha Freedom Party had claimed that directors received large performance bonuses for the 2005/06 financial year.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that burgeoning economic ties with Asian countries are paying off for the country shunned by its former trading allies in the West. He blamed the country’s economic woes on ”declared and undeclared sanctions by Western countries”.
KwaZulu-Natal’s transport minister, Bheki Cele, on Friday accused the Witness newspaper of being manipulated by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the ongoing issue of provincial ministers’ vehicles speeding with blue lights. IFP national organiser Albert Mncwango said: ”He’s talking absolute rubbish.”