The Department of Labour has intervened in Friday’s crippling South African Airways (SAA) strike, the United Association of SA trade union said. General manager Andre Venter said this followed a request to Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana to put pressure on SAA management to resume wage talks.
Llewellyn Herbert and Surita Febbraio, two of South Africa’s leading athletes who will feature in the 400m hurdles at the forthcoming World Championships, recorded good victories at the annual Karelia Games in Lappeenranta, Finland, on Thursday night.
Police confirmed on Friday that a man was shot by armed officers at an underground station in south London, amid reports that he was a would-be suicide bomber. Sky News television reported that passengers had been evacuated from trains at the station.
Germany’s Jan Ullrich is facing the prospect of emerging from the Tour de France finale on Sunday without a victory from this year’s race, which has once again been dominated by Lance Armstrong. Ullrich has once again had to bow to the reality that Armstrong is simply too strong.
McLaren showed their rivals the way ahead of Sunday’s German Grand Prix when test driver Alexander Wurz finished fastest in the opening practice session in Hockenheim on Friday. The British team are aiming to chase down championship leaders Renault this weekend.
Four of eight South Africans suspected of involvement in a planned coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea appeared briefly in the Pretoria Regional Court on Friday. The men’s defence team received a copy of a draft charge sheet and an undertaking that the final one will be handed over by August 31.
A KwaZulu-Natal man committed suicide inside his home on Friday as police waited for him to open the door to arrest him for allegedly attempting to kill his wife. According to police spokesperson Captain Tienkie van Vuuren, Lucky Mthethwa (50) was wanted for the attempted murder of his wife.
While the statutory Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) is poised to introduce a framework that will yield lower cellphone tariffs, Cell C this month hiked tariffs and MTN and Vodacom are likely to follow suit on August 1, it emerged this week.
Hooded protesters destroyed a bus and a bomb damaged offices in northern Spain overnight on Thursday after an alleged member of the Basque separatist group ETA died during a police chase, officials said. The explosion at about 2am local time on Friday extensively damaged the offices of a building company in Guernica.
The unique fynbos in the Sandveld, on the Cape western coast, is degenerating into a desolate lunar landscape after years of rapidly growing potato cultivation, largely to meet the fast food industry’s demand for French fries. Potato farmers’ irrigation needs, combined with inadequate winter rains, have destroyed 55% of the vegetation, say conservationists.