South Africa’s 5-0 series win in the West Indies sees them climb back into the top four of the LG ICC ODI Championship for the first time since July 2004. The victory boosted South Africa’s rating by five points to 112. West Indies went into the series only two points behind South Africa but defeat has seen their rating fall to 98 points to seventh position.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) will consider restoring caffeine to its list of banned substances after Australian Rugby Union captain George Gregan said he used it to enhance performance. Wada added that reports that Gregan and other Australian athletes were using caffeine to boost performance were disturbing.
Lawyers for Zimbabwe’s former finance minister asked the high court on Tuesday to throw out the charges against Chris Kuruneri of funnelling foreign currency to build a mansion in neighbouring South Africa. Kuruneri was arrested in April last year at the height of the Zimbabwean government’s anti-graft crusade.
Allan Heyl, the last surviving member of the Stander gang — a gang that grabbed headlines and was the subject of a Hollywood movie for committing a string of robberies in and around Johannesburg in the 1980s — was released from Krugersdorp Prison on Wednesday. He is to spend the remaining 10 years of his sentence on parole.
A representative of vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath has come under fire from the SA Jewish Board of Deputies for likening the Treatment Action Campaign to Nazis. Lawyer Anthony Brink made the claim in papers he filed in reply to the TAC’s application in the Cape High Court for an urgent defamation interdict against Rath and his Dr Rath Health Foundation.
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika fired Education Minister Yusuf Mwawa only hours after the minister’s arrest on Tuesday on corruption charges. Mwawa was the first close ally of the president to be arrested in an anti-corruption drive. He is accused of using public funds to pay for his wedding reception.
Workers at Denel are to conduct daily protests at the local arms manufacturer’s Pretoria offices against a suspected drive to remove black managers from their positions. Denel said it was not aware of any manager being demoted and that it remained committed to constructive engagement with organised labour.
”We just want that little white piece of paper,” said Marie Fourie during a break at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, drawing an air square with her fingers. ”We just want it to be legal, legal, legal,” she said from the front of the public gallery where she and Cecilia Bonthuys spent the day listening to argument over what constituted a marriage.
Former South African leader Nelson Mandela and United States President George Bush on Tuesday discussed ways to reduce Third World debt, but did not raise their disagreement over Iraq, officials said. Mandela, a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, met with Bush at the White House during a private visit to the US.
The decision by Kenya’s attorney general to drop a murder charge against one of Kenya’s most prominent and richest white farmers may cause widespread anger amongst the country’s Masai population, who still nurse grievances against white farmers for settling on land they once roamed with their cattle.