![]()
An African National Congress (ANC) court docked six months pay from two men who had sex with Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser — not because the court found she had been raped, but because she was a child. The Johannesburg High Court heard on Thursday that one of the men still denies he had sex with her when she was a teenager.
The anti-drugs programme at Melbourne’s Commonwealth Games will be the toughest ever, with almost one in four athletes facing dope tests over the next fortnight, organisers said on Thursday. ”This is the most comprehensive programme we have ever had in place,” Games chief executive Mike Hooper said.
Asia’s newest and poorest nation East Timor faces a tough task lifting itself out of poverty despite social and political gains and rich unexploited oil and gas reserves, a United Nations report said on Thursday. The report painted a bleak picture of conditions in the nation of one million people, where the economy has been shrinking and development indicators only slightly improving.
Nigerian separatist guerrillas who are holding three Western hostages said on Thursday that they had fought off an attack by the military in a fierce gun battle on the Niger Delta creeks. Military spokespersons could not initially confirm or deny there had been a clash, but a boat captain operating in the area confirmed he had seen injured troops.
The JSE was in positive territory just before noon on Thursday, having bounced following the previous two days’ sharp sell-off. However, dealers questioned whether the bourse’s recovery was sustainable, saying there was still a lot of negative sentiment in the market.
Next week sees KwaZulu-Natal hosting the 2006 Standard Bank Durban Motor Show, from March 17 to 21, at the Durban Exhibition Centre. Thirty leading motor brands will display their latest offerings at the event, and their ranks include more than a couple of exotics.
The oath-laden slogan of Australia’s new tourism campaign — ”So where the bloody hell are you?” — has been banned in Britain. The decision by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority was announced in Australia on Thursday and will keep the Aus-million (-million) campaign off British television screens.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board on Wednesday resolved not to restore Zimbabwe’s voting rights and to maintain a freeze on loans to the crisis-hit Southern African nation. Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa, had hoped to persuade the fund to release badly needed financial support
Moroka Swallows’ Tsweu Mokoro, one of the shining luminaries of the current Premier Soccer League programme, is likely to miss the rest of the season with a torn ligament injury. ”I felt a little sick when I heard the news,” said Swallows MD Leon Prins on Wednesday.
The race to save hundreds of thousands of Pakistani earthquake survivors from the harsh Himalayan winter has been won, the United Nations said on Wednesday. ”There has been no second wave of deaths, no massive population movement down the mountains, no severe malnutrition, and no outbreak of epidemics,” said Jamie McGoldrick in Islamabad.