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Sri Lanka crushed Bermuda by 243 runs to claim the second-biggest victory in World Cup history on Thursday. Not a bad start for the 1996 champions. Pace bowlers Farveez Maharoof and Lasith Malinga ripped through Bermuda’s inexperienced batting order, bundling it out for 78 in 24.4 overs.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille says she will stand for the post of Democratic Alliance leader at the party’s federal congress in May this year. She made the announcement at a Cape Town Press Club dinner on Thursday evening, a year to the day after being elected mayor of Cape Town.
A defiant Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told critics of his government to ”go hang” themselves on Thursday in his first response to the arrest and assault of opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai. After talks with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, the veteran leader accused Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change of instigating violence.
Beneath the M1 highway overlooking Newtown, two vibrant little structures became the focus of attention on Wednesday when the City of Johannesburg launched what it calls ”the best seats in town”. Enclosed in bright yellow and purple, pod-like buildings, the ”seats” in question are silver, cone shaped and flush at the press of a button.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown says he has already been convicted in a trial by media. He made the statement in an affidavit handed in at his bail hearing in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. ”I have been held out to be the villain in the tale, and have already been convicted by it [the media],” he said.
The state has taken possession of the Pniel estate near Barkly West in the Northern Cape, the first piece of land to be fully expropriated in terms of the government’s restoration programme. ”Land claims commissioner Tovey Gwanja visited the farm personally on Thursday to symbolically receive the key,” Eddie Nkomazana of the land claims office in Bloemfontein said on Thursday.
Police were asked to have another look at the charge of reckless driving against Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. On Thursday, Beeld reported that the NPA had asked police to clear up a few points.
Israel on Thursday rejected any contacts with the new Palestinian unity government, denying earlier statements by a senior official that it could work with it under certain conditions. ”The Israeli position remains the same,” government spokesperson Miri Eisin told the media in the first official reaction to the new Palestinian Cabinet line-up unveiled on Thursday.
Central bank chief Gideon Gono has compared Zimbabwe’s 1 730% inflation rate to the Aids pandemic and warned it cannot be tackled by the government alone, state media reported on Thursday. ”Inflation has ceased to be just the number one enemy. It is now actually the economic HIV of this country,” Gono said in remarks carried by the Herald newspaper.
A lack of information is holding back the potential of cellphone banking to expand access to financial services to the unbanked population. This is one of the key conclusions of the FinScope Mobile Banking Pilot Survey, whose findings were released in Johannesburg on Thursday.