South Africa are set for another agonising battle when the second and final Test against Sri Lanka starts on Friday at off-spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan’s home club. The Sara Oval at the Tamil Union Club, where Muralitharan plays his domestic cricket, is regarded as a spinners’ haven tailor-made for the prolific star.
Zimbabwean shops and businesses were on Tuesday slashing zeros from their prices as the country started adjusting to a redenominated currency introduced by the central bank. But ordinary people pondered whether this signalled that the country’s economic fortunes were improving.
The JSE surrendered early gains to head south on Thursday as players adopted a cautious stance ahead of the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) announcement on interest rates due just after 3pm. Weakness on offshore markets and a lower gold price added to the negativity.
Rescuers trying to save a woman who got stuck in a tree after her house was flooded were hampered by snakes making for their jet ski, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Thursday. ”There were lots of snakes in the flood waters. They were using the rescue gear and the jetski for floatation,” spokesperson Craig Lambinon said.
Wednesday’s talks between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Kumba Resources failed to find a solution to the current strike action affecting the company, the union said on Thursday. "The meeting, which took the whole day, ended without offering a clear sign of an end to the deadlock," the statement added.
Australia coach John Connolly expects a more confrontational South Africa side in Sydney on Saturday than the team that was thrashed 49-0 in their first Tri-Nations encounter in Brisbane last month. With Australia licking their wounds after last week’s 13-9 loss to New Zealand resigned them to a fourth straight Bledisloe Cup defeat and further lost ground in the Tri-Nations, Connolly said the Wallabies must step up a gear.
The United States’s military top brass may have deliberately misled the 9/11 commission, painting a picture of a swift response to the unfolding terrorist attacks when, in reality, fighter jets spent crucial minutes pursuing a non-existent plane, it emerged on Wednesday.
Billionaire Dave King had already spent over R68,8-million on lawyers and there was more where that came from, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. King faces 322 charges of tax fraud, racketeering and foreign exchange contraventions laid out in an indictment of 200 000 pages.
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The Presidency is considering a request from Jacob Zuma for financial assistance in his corruption trial, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Thursday. It quoted chief operations officer Trevor Fowler as saying the matter was being discussed by lawyers.
A woman jumped off a Durban beach pier with her three-year-old son strapped to her back in an apparent suicide bid on Wednesday night. Inspector Tray Allison of the police search and rescue unit said fishermen on the Wedge Beach Pier saw the woman climb over the railings and jump into the water.