President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has upstaged George Bush’s Latin American tour in a show of political theatre that this weekend saw insults hurled across the River Plate. The socialist firebrand turned a rally in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, into a platform to assail the US president as he flew into neighbouring Uruguay.
The first farmland-expropriation exercise by the government, to be effective on March 15, was overshadowed by ”outstanding issues” among claimants of the Pniel farm in the Northern Cape. The land will now first be kept in curatorship by the state before it will be handed to the claimants, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights said on Saturday.
![]()
South Africa coach Mickey Arthur said there is no need to panic despite watching his world number one side’s batting line-up fail to click for the second successive match. South Africa lost by seven wickets to Pakistan on Friday in their final World Cup warm-up match on an awful pitch that caused so many concerns that players protested over its match-worthiness.
Zambia has started mass demolition of illegal houses in the capital, Lusaka, in a move to end corruption in the distribution of land plots, a police spokesperson said on Saturday. Bonny Kapeso said police moved in to raze houses in an exercise that started late on Friday night and ended in the early hours of Saturday.
Iraq urged its neighbours, including Iran and Syria, to halt their alleged support for violent extremists on Saturday as insurgent attacks slaughtered at least 35 more Iraqis. The urgency of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s appeal was underlined when, in a suspected insurgent attack, three mortar rounds detonated next to the Foreign Ministry while peace talks took place inside.
An anti-crime petition with an estimated 200 000 signatures and a memorandum demanding a crime-free and corruption-free South Africa were handed to officials by marchers in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban on Saturday. ”We will use every avenue … to ensure that people’s rights are no longer violated,” said Shane Pillay, national coordinator of the South Africans against Crime campaign.
Zimbabwean police on Saturday vowed to block an anti-government rally planned in Harare by a coalition of opposition and rights groups on Sunday. National police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told journalists police had received information from a whistleblower that the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change was arming youths to engage in violent protests across the country.
Bryan Habana and Fourie de Preez scored two tries each as South Africa’s Bulls crushed the New South Wales Waratahs 32-19 in a Super 14 match at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday. Habana scored twice down the left wing after following up kicks while scrumhalf de Preez scored two solo tries.
South Africa still has a long way to go to throw off its ”ethnic blinkers”, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said, referring to his party’s leadership race. ”We are still held back by the prejudices and wrong-headed decisions of the past,” Leon told the party’s Gauteng congress at the Benoni High School on the East Rand.
An opening scoring blitz set up the Auckland Blues for a 41-14 drubbing of the Golden Lions to stay on top of the Super 14 rugby table in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday. The Blues took maximum points from the game with six tries, two of them to winger Doug Howlett, who finished the game level with former Brumbie Joe Roff’s Super rugby record of 57 tries.