Experienced French prop Sylvain Marconnet should be able to resume full training on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s second Test against South Africa. The 28-year-old Stade Francais stalwart has been suffering from a right thigh injury picked up during the thrilling 30-30 draw with the Springboks in the first Test last Saturday.
International banking group Barclays bought up a total of 1,158-million shares in Absa in the open market on Wednesday at prices ranging from R81,65 to R81,81 per share, adding to the 554 400 shares it purchased on Tuesday, the company revealed on Thursday.
The trade union Solidarity on Wednesday threatened ”the biggest strike this year” should its members in the metal and engineering industry reject their employers’ final offer of a 4,8% to 5,8% pay rise. General secretary Johan Pieterse said it appeared that the employers were bent on forcing a strike.
United States feminist Gloria Steinem was among a small group of protestors on Wednesday who sought to take the sparkle out of the gala opening in New York of South African diamond giant De Beers’ first US showroom. The protest, organised by the lobby group Survival International, picketed celebrities like Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan as they arrived at the event.
The teenage girl with flowers in her hair crossed her tiny hands to keep them from trembling, and described how she was raped by 10 militiamen. Ombeni (18) was then kept as a concubine for nine months in the forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. When she became pregnant, the militia removed her baby with a machete and left her alone to die on the forest floor.
When Billy Graham came to preach in New York in 1957 his trip was regarded as ambitious, verging on foolhardy. Back then, New York was regarded as synonymous with sin — a hub for loose morals and fast living, luring and then corrupting the innocent from Middle America.
A Japanese hamburger chain will on Thursday start selling whale-meat burgers, hours after the International Whaling Commission condemned Tokyo’s plans to double the number of whales it kills during so-called research hunts. Despite condemnation, Japan has recently stepped up its campaign to promote whalemeat consumption.
The Nobel laureate and gentle giant Jack Kilby, who has died of cancer aged 81, was acknowledged as the inventor of the microchip. He had just joined Texas Instruments in 1958 when he came up with what is called the monolithic idea — to put all the elements of an electronic circuit on a single silicon chip.
Food crises in Mali and Niger are ”forgotten emergencies,” senior officials of the World Food Programme warned on Wednesday, renewing an appeal for assistance that has gone largely ignored by the international community. The parched soil has yielded little in the last five years, due to successive droughts and inconsistent rains.
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