Oil prices jumped above the $70 level in Asian trade on Tuesday as experts forecast a potentially devastating Atlantic hurricane season that could push prices to the $100 mark, dealers said. At 2.30pm local time, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, was up 29 cents at $70,25 a barrel.
Trevor Phillips, ”The British Bulldog”, will leave the Premier Soccer League (PSL) when his contract expires in November — muzzled, it would seem, by what the forthright CEO described on Monday as a post with ”enormous responsibility and relatively limited authority”. Phillips believes he will be leaving the PSL ”on a sound footing”.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana has called on trade unions representing striking security guards and employers to resume negotiations, the government news agency, BuaNews, reported on Tuesday. Mdladlana said he had been asked to intervene in the impasse over wages and working conditions in the security industry. But, he said, according to the law he could not do so.
Juan Rios shrugged as he carved out a juicy tenderloin from a 2,5m alligator that was brought to him bound and gagged but still kicking. The gator scare that has swept Florida ”was long overdue,” says Rios (42) throwing the choice cut into a bloody bucketful of meat that only a few hours ago was a potentially deadly animal.
Less than three months after opening for business, Absa Islamic Banking announced on Tuesday that it will offer two more products to its Sharia-compliant offering. These are a cheque and savings account. And, as is the case with all other Absa Islamic Banking products, the new additions meet the conditions laid down by Islamic law.
A group of about 800 protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape who were evicted from the Tshwane city hall on Monday were being cared for by residents on Tuesday. ”The group has been separated into two smaller groups of about 300 and 500 each and they are staying in open halls in blocks of flats in the Pretoria CBD,” said Willie Fuledi, spokesperson for the Ex-Mineworkers’ Union of SA.
South African athlete Ernst van Dyk was named Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday. Swiss tennis superstar Roger Federer was named World Sportsman of the Year for the second straight year, with the women’s honour going to Croatian skier Janica Kostelic.
Sudan’s Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi on Tuesday criticised the Darfur peace agreement signed earlier this month as partial and incomplete, a senior official from his party told Agence France-Presse. The Popular Congress Party head met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s top envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk.
English clubs are threatening to scuttle England’s new rugby Test with the All Blacks in November because they say they’re not obliged to make their players available. England’s Rugby Football Union confirmed the November 5 Test on Monday along with live TV and ticket packages to help christen the new £100-million (-million) South Stand at Twickenham.
Africa saw a reduction in conflicts last year but gross human rights violations including killings and rape continued in volatile areas, Amnesty International said its annual report. ”The signing of several peace agreements in 2005 resulted in a decline in armed conflict across the region,” the London-based body’s 2006 International Report said.