Indian troops sealed off large parts of Kashmir’s summer capital following random grenade attacks and murders ahead of a visit on Wednesday by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Combat troops backed up commandos and border guards in Srinagar, where residents in several districts found themselves corralled into ”sanitised zones” on Tuesday.
One thing that has become increasingly evident among the Springbok squad of 2006, assembled in Bloemfontein, is that the team looks desperately short of pace out wide. Of the initial squad of 45, only 27 went through their paces at Shimla Park on Tuesday afternoon, and of those 27, not one player was an out-and-out winger.
The African Union on Tuesday suggested that United Nations peacekeeping troops should be sent to Sudan’s Darfur region within two months to bolster a peace accord and prevent the humanitarian crisis from worsening. AU commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare said the accord sealed in Abuja, Nigeria ”will be credible if we can ensure the commitment becomes a reality”.
The Limpopo department of transport squandered millions of rands on a transport convention, a report by Auditor General Shauket Fakie has found. Among the findings were that the department did not budget correctly, overstated income and understated expenditure to the value of millions of rands.
The former editor of the Afrikaans pornographic magazine Loslyf must pay celebrity Amor Vittone R180 000 in damages, the Pretoria High Court ordered on Tuesday. This followed publication of ”manipulated” pictures that depicted Vittone in a very compromising position.
The South African Rugby Union’s disciplinary inquiry into corporate mismanagement allegations against its former president, Brian van Rooyen, started in his absence in Bloemfontein on Tuesday. Neither Van Rooyen nor any of his legal representatives were present when the proceedings started.
His is not a name that has been heard too often outside swimming circles, but George du Rand’s silver medal at the recent Commonwealth Games may change all that. On Wednesday, Du Rand and three other swimmers will head to Bratislava in Slovakia where they will be competing from May 26 to 28.
Gay and lesbian people on the conservative Indian Ocean island of Mauritius said on Tuesday they want protection against discrimination built into new human rights legislation. Although Mauritian law does not explicitly outlaw homosexuality, gay people here complain of rampant social discrimination.
The Department of Correctional Services is to introduce compulsory rehabilitation programmes soon, Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour said on Tuesday. ”The days of voluntary engagement in rehabilitation programmes are numbered,” Balfour told MPs in the National Assembly during debate on his budget vote.
Johannesburg International airport is to spend R3,4-billion upgrading facilities and security over the next four years — and at least another R8-billion in the next decade. The upgrades include readying the airport to handle the giant Airbus A380, accommodating the Gautrain and building a 25km concrete perimeter wall.