New Zealand will face South Africa on Saturday the IRB under-19 rugby World Championship final. New Zealand scored three tries in a powerful first-half performance against Wales at Ravenhill, Belfast, to go into the break 23-9 ahead. Despite a much-improved performance in the second half, Wales were unable to breach the New Zealand try line.
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Michael Vaughan took the acclaim when he led England to their 2005 Ashes triumph. Now the same fans greet his name with boos. England’s World Cup elimination on Tuesday brought into focus the woeful batting form of skipper Vaughan, who struggled through the premier limited-overs event and compiled just 130 runs in nine innings.
Ernie Els and Retief Goosen will be aiming to ease very different forms of Masters heartache when they tee off at the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai on Thursday as a high-class field aims to impose more misery. The smooth-swinging South African duo walked off the famed fairways at Augusta National this month with their hopes of securing another Major title blown away.
Diego Maradona has recovered enough from a relapse of hepatitis to possibly allow him to continue his treatment for alcohol abuse at home, doctors for the football great said on Tuesday. ”Mr Diego Maradona continues to improve after his stay in the clinic, with laboratory work showing clear improvement,” said a statement released by the private Los Arcos clinic.
The JSE remained lower at midday on Wednesday, tracing the weaker tone in overseas markets while groceries retailer Shoprite soared on speculation that its investors might demand a higher price from its buyers. Also, talk in the market that the MTN Group was a prime target for a private equity takeover sent the mobile telecommunications giant to a fresh trading high.
South African Breweries (SAB) said on Wednesday that the company was experiencing "unusually high" demand for this time of the year, across its range of brands. "The increased volumes are obviously good news for us, but currently it’s proving quite difficult to keep up with demand in certain areas," said SAB spokesperson Shirley Scriven.
All vehicle testing stations in Johannesburg and Pretoria were open on Wednesday, but glitches with the new traffic information system continued. The new service is electronic which means traffic-related transactions may be completed using automated teller machines and the internet.
Renewed violence between Ethiopian troops and Somali insurgents killed at least five people in Mogadishu, residents said on Wednesday. Heavy shelling rocked the southern area of the seaside capital on Tuesday night, and some mortars fell close to the presidential palace.
At least 32 workers were killed and two injured on Wednesday when they were engulfed by molten steel at a metal factory in north-east China, the government said. The accident was triggered when a steel ladle, with a capacity of 30 tonnes of liquid steel, sheared off from the blast furnace, spilling molten metal onto the factory floor about 3m below.
The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) is celebrating its 99th birthday by launching a new campaign to make it easier to read and write English. It may be the world’s most universal language, but linguistic experts say it has failed to adapt for the past 500 years and now half the globe’s English speakers have difficulty spelling.