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/ 3 February 2006
The South African Football Association (Safa) website lists the date of birth of its technical committee chairperson, Sturu Pasiya, as January 26 2006 — the same day that Bafana Bafana were beaten 2-0 by Tunisia in the African Nations Cup in Egypt. The website listing is a glitch, but the impression remains that Safa is peopled by some babes in the woods.
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/ 3 February 2006
Two-thirds of the government’s community development workers — the grassroots civil servants deployed by President Thabo Mbeki to boost local government services — have failed to find jobs in municipalities in the Western Cape. In his 2003 State of the Nation address, Mbeki launched the scheme to bring government services to people’s place of residence.
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/ 3 February 2006
Clever electronic features are the make-or-break feature in many new toys on display at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, which entered the second day on Friday of a six-day run. Baby Shark, a toy from Super Grand Enterprise of Hong Kong, exemplifies how makers are taking traditional playthings and giving them a new twist.
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/ 3 February 2006
A fitness training programme from Mauritius is the reason former president Nelson Mandela did not attend his successor’s State of the Nation address at Parliament on Friday. The Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement the former president had called President Thabo Mbeki to wish him well, and apologised for not being able to attend the address.
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/ 3 February 2006
The notion of freedom of speech is damned pretty, but it contains one fundamental flaw: it allows people to speak freely. This severe shortcoming has presented immense obstacles to progressive societies over the centuries and while some of the more athletic Occidental nations have made strides in correcting its foibles the most insidious fantasy of our age has taken hold of the public imagination.
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/ 3 February 2006
The South African Football Association (Safa) is fully committed to ensuring the 2010 Fifa World Cup is the best to date — and that South Africa fields a winning team. That was the response from Safa chief executive Raymond Hack to comments made by President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on Friday.
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/ 3 February 2006
The spot price of platinum on Friday climbed to an all-time high, while sister metals palladium and rhodium reached long-term highs on fund buying and bullish sentiment towards platinum group metals, traders and analysts said. At 3.10pm, platinum was quoted at $1 082,50/oz, up $1,50/oz from its previous close.
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/ 3 February 2006
The venom of the derisory boos and jeers that greeted the national football team on their return from the African Nations Cup this week was unprecedented, as was President Thabo Mbeki’s indignation with their dismal performances in Egypt.
"How big was their crime?" coach Ted Dumitru asked as his players stumbled home.
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/ 3 February 2006
In the heat of the strike, trade unions at Spoornet claim that more than 2Â 000 drivers are about to lose their jobs, but management claims that it intends to hire 800 train drivers and assistants. Unions this week told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> that Spoornet, Transnet’s rail subsidiary, has mooted the retrenchment of more than 2Â 000 workers.
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/ 3 February 2006
Different arms of the government are at one another’s throats over a proposed 21-storey dam on a major river that passes through the Kruger National Park and feeds Mozambique. South African National Parks has threatened legal action against its principal, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.