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Now is not the time to take hasty decisions that might be regretted later — that’s how Haroon Lorgat, convenor of selectors, responded on Thursday to South Africa’s disappointing exit from the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean. South Africa lost by seven wickets to Australia in the semifinal in St Lucia on Wednesday after being bowled out for 149.
”I did my best,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said in an interview with the media as he looked back on eight years in office and rejected foreign and domestic criticism of the country’s flawed polls last weekend. ”The day I meet God I’ll tell him: not everything was perfect, but I did my best,” the president said in his office late on Wednesday.
Hassan Abdallah stood in front of a group of young girls wearing bright dresses to greet the head of the United Nations refugee agency at Um Shalaya, a camp for Chadian refugees in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. Raising his arms high and urging the girls to repeat after him, he chanted: ”This is our land. Long live Chad.”
A protester bit a police officer in clashes during service-delivery protests north-west of Pretoria the day before Freedom Day, said Pretoria police. Police used rubber bullets to disperse crowds in Soshanguve, Winterveldt and Hammanskraal north-west of the city, but the protesters later regrouped.
Cellphone operator Cell C scored a 19% rise in revenue for the year ended December 31 2006, the company announced on Thursday. It said gross profit increased by R352-million — or 18% — to R2,3-billion, and subscriber numbers kept on rising.
The process of identifying potential candidates to lead the African National Congress (ANC) has officially begun within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). ”The discussion is being declared open,” said Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Thursday.
The man who held eight people hostage and wounded a police officer at the Pretoria News building will appear in court on Monday on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and possession of an unlicensed firearm, police said.
Ethiopian rebels who killed 74 people and seized seven Chinese workers in an attack on an oilfield said on Thursday they had no plans to hold the foreigners. But a London-based spokesperson for the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which claimed responsibility for the raid, gave no details about when the Chinese would be freed.
Organisers of the Comrades Marathon have fielded a string of complaints as a result of the decision to hold the country’s premier marathon on a Sunday, the Mercury reported on Thursday. According to the newspaper, more than 100 churches on the route will be affected by road closures as a result of the marathon.
The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has come out in support of a unified public service across all three spheres of government. On Thursday, the final day of its conference in Midrand, Salga adopted a resolution in favour of a single public service for national, provincial and municipal government.