Racist abuse from Australian fans to South Africa’s cricketers was ”premeditated, coordinated and calculated to get under the players’ skins”, said an official report to the International Cricket Council on Tuesday. South African fast bowler Andre Nel said he was racially taunted by fans in the third Test in Sydney in January.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, on a red-carpet visit to the United States, called on Tuesday for exiled former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor to be extradited home swiftly. ”I wish we had the luxury of time on this issue. But it has become an impediment to our being able to move forward to be able to pursue our development agenda,” she said after talks with United States President George Bush.
South African brewing giant SABMiller said on Wednesday that following receipt of approval from the Slovak Anti-Monopoly Office on Monday March 13 it had acquired 48,4% of the Slovakian brewer Topvar. The controlling shareholders will sell further shares to enable SABMiller to increase its interest to at least 67% by the end of September 2006.
Zimbabwe’s tobacco farmers are this year expected to produce just 55-million kilogrammes of tobacco, the lowest output for years, state radio reported on Tuesday. Tobacco production has been in steep decline since President Robert Mugabe’s government launched a controversial programme of seizing white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to new black farmers.
The Independent Democrats has still not made a decision on the Democratic Alliance offer of a share in the government of the city of Cape Town, ID spokesperson Mervyn Cirota said on Tuesday night. He said ID and DA negotiators met on Monday, and on Tuesday reported back to their principals on ”issues”.
When student demonstrators in France wore trash bags to protests, their message was: ”We’re not disposable.” Officially, they are angry about a new government job plan that makes it easier for employers to hire and fire them. But that was just the tipping point.
KwaZulu-Natal arts, culture and tourism provincial minister Narend Singh resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal over a DVD allegedly depicting sex between him and a married Durban socialite. ”Continued negative exposure in the media in recent days has put me under a strain that in my opinion goes beyond the call of duty,” he said.
The dominance of the Apple iPod hit its first European stumbling block on Tuesday when French MPs voted to force companies to allow music downloads to be played on all types of digital players, not just their own. Apple’s online music store, iTunes, dominates the global online music market, selling about three million songs a day for 99 cents each.
For generations, African farmers have relied on local knowledge to manage and conserve water. Whether this knowledge should be recognised and promoted by the government is a matter of some debate in the Southern African region, however. The issue is also in the spotlight on Wednesday, which marks World Water Day.
Warning for landlords: beware of diminutive tenants wearing purple jumpsuits, you never know what they’re going to do to your property. American basketball player Carlos Boozer should really have had his wits about him when he let his ,9-m Hollywood home to a 47-year-old Minneapolis man with no surname.