Imran Farhat and Younis Khan hit half-centuries as Pakistan thrashed Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the second and final Test here on Wednesday to clinch the series 1-0. The tourists faced no difficult chasing a 183-run target on the third day as left-handed opener Farhat (65) and Younis (73 not out) batted confidently to ensure victory with a 114-run stand for the second wicket.
Diamond giant De Beers said on Wednesday it was finalising the sale of more than a quarter of its South African assets to black partners in a multi-million dollar deal, bowing to pressure to obtain more black ownership. ”De Beers and Ponahalo are pleased to announce that definitive transaction agreements have now been signed,” the company said in a statement issued in Johannesburg.
One street child — and not four as previously reported — died in a fire at midnight on Tuesday night in the vacant basement in which they were sleeping in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow district, police said. In another fire, a man burned to death after his room caught fire in a Yeoville basement, emergency services said.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla on Wednesday confirmed that she has accepted a request for long leave from embattled Cape Judge President John Hlophe. ”I am giving it. He is entitled to it [leave],” she said during a tea break at a Judicial Service Commission hearing.
LeisureNet accused Rodney Mitchell assigned completely arbitrary values to the work in progress of an architectural firm the LeisureNet group was buying out, the Cape High Court heard on Wednesday. Architect Dawid Rabie, formerly majority shareholder in the firm Keystone was the first witness called in the trial of Mitchell.
Police have confirmed that 121 skulls with mysterious saw marks that were found in a ravine in north-west China belonged to humans, state press reported on Wednesday. The skulls were found in plastic bags, along with fur and other bones, in a forested riverbank on Monday last week in Gansu province’s Tianzhu Tibetan autonomous county.
Police statistics showed a correlation between a decrease in car theft and an increase in aggravated robbery, a study presented in Pretoria on Wednesday suggests. ”What does a car thief do when they are not stealing cars? My feeling is that they may be involved in other forms of criminal activity when they are not stealing cars,” said Institute for Security Studies researcher Antony Altbeker.
Inefficiency and negligence at the Commission for Occupational Injuries and Diseases has caused a multimillion-rand backlog in the payment of claims to doctors who treat workers, the Democratic Alliance charged on Wednesday. Claims are being processed by the commission at an ”absurdly slow pace”.
With smiles all around and a well-timed pat on the back, the two most powerful figures in British politics made a carefully choreographed attempt on Wednesday to dispel talk of a bitter rift between them. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his heir apparent, Gordon Brown, put on a show of solidarity as they launched the start of the Labour Party’s campaign for the May 4 local-council elections.
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Jacob Zuma was surprised that the woman who accuses him of rape left his bedroom after they had sex, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Wednesday. He agreed with prosecutor Charin de Beer that he thought the woman would spend the rest of the night in his bed.