Some unfamiliar names could reach this season’s 32-team group stage of the Champions League. Some of Europe’s powers, including last season’s runners-up Arsenal, six-time champions AC Milan and 2005 champions Liverpool, face tough opposition in the final qualifying round for the Champions League.
Cycling chief Pat McQuaid on Monday called for team bosses to be punished along with riders amid the furore of the failed drugs test of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. Meanwhile, Landis, who risks being stripped of his Tour title, hit back on Monday at world cycling authorities.
Western Province got off to the best possible start at the Spar National Netball Championships in Port Elizabeth on Monday, beating defending champions Central Gauteng by 45 goals to 38 in their opening match. Central Gauteng certainly did not appear to be champion material in the first quarter.
Skipper Mahela Jayawardene and veteran Sanath Jayasuriya hit aggressive half-centuries to push Sri Lanka closer to a remarkable victory in the second Test against South Africa in Colombo on Monday. Jayasuriya smashed 73 off 74 balls and Jayawardene was unbeaten on 77 as Sri Lanka ended a tense fourth day’s play on 262-5.
The first koala to be born in Africa has finally emerged from his mother’s pouch, the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria said on Monday. Conservation staff at the zoo have reported that the young joey, as young koalas are known, is regularly seen with its head out of mother Renée’s pouch.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called off its week-long strike over wages at Kumba Resources after a weekend of consultations, it said on Monday. The NUM downed tools on Sunday and Solidarity on Monday in demand of a 9% wage increase for higher earners and 10,5% for lower earners.
A mere 2 647 taxi operators of more than 135 000 in the country have registered with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), the Department of Labour said on Monday. Said departmental spokesperson Kgomotso Sebetso: ”It’s not fair that the taxi owners don’t want to comply with the law.”
Cash-in-transit heist gangs hit at least six vans on Monday — three of them from Fidelity Cash Management Services and three from Coin Security. Although shots — including assault-rifle fire — went off in all but one of the attacks, only one security guard was wounded. Four robbers were arrested.
Lebanon’s prime minister, choking back tears, demanded a "quick and decisive ceasefire" on Monday after an Israeli air raid that he at first said killed more than 40 civilians sheltering from fighting in a southern village. Later, though, he said that only one person had been killed. Air raids elsewhere killed at least 24 Lebanese.
The BMW Sauber Formula One team on Monday announced they had released former world champion Canadian Jacques Villeneuve from his contract. Villeneuve did not take part in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix after informing the team that he had not fully recovered from an accident in Germany the previous weekend.