Springbok coach Jake White said on Monday he was optimistic he would have a full squad of 28 to choose from for Saturday’s Tri-Nations Test against New Zealand in Pretoria. ”We’ll see after training this afternoon, but I’m very hopeful the medical staff will give everyone the all-clear,” White told reporters in Pretoria.
Tata Steel KwaZulu-Natal on Monday celebrated the start of construction of its R670-million ferrochrome plant at Richards Bay with a groundbreaking ceremony in the Industrial Development Zone, at Alton North area, in the largest port city in KwaZulu-Natal. A plaque was unveiled by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Fitch Ratings’ director of the sovereigns department, Veronica Kalema, says South Africa’s net exports will get a boost from the weaker rand, which will have a rebalancing effect on the economy. Fitch also said South Africa’s gross domestic product should not fall as low the 3,7% reached in 2004.
South Africa is trying to help resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme through separate discussions with the Iranian foreign minister and the United States’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki met Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in Pretoria on Monday.
Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor who co-starred in When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and many other films, has died at age 57, his wife said. Kirby died on June 14 in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, according to a statement from his wife, Lynn Sellers.
While the health ministry attacked Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille for urging Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s dismissal, others backed the call for the minister’s head on Monday. The ministry said in a statement it was disappointed by the level of ignorance demonstrated by De Lille during a radio interview.
The tired suits at the tired old Security Council chamber at the United Nations in New York, personally removed from both violence and violent language, finally agree that there should be a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, after thousands have died and a whole country, Lebanon, that has seen nothing but this kind of regular disintegration since the days of the Crusaders, has been taken apart once again.
Two explosions ripped through a market in north-east Moscow on Monday morning, killing at least nine people and injuring 33. Acting mayor Vladimir Resin told reporters that the blasts were ”an intentional act” caused by a homemade bomb, and prosecutors said a feud between rival gangs was the most likely cause of the attack.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the situation in Lebanon as ”very fragile” on Monday as a truce between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas entered its second week. Merkel said it was vital to get United Nations peacekeeping troops to the area quickly to prevent a rekindling of the conflict, in which nearly 1Â 200 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis died.
A new restaurant in India’s financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country’s small Jewish community. Hitler’s Cross, which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.