South Africa opened their defence of their Singapore Sevens title in style when they beat minnows Thailand 77-0 at the national stadium in Singapore on Saturday. Playing in muggy conditions, the Boks ran in 11 tries to set the highest-winning margin in the IRB Sevens series this year.
Less than three months before the vote, the five cities vying for the 2012 Summer Games are getting a chance to make their pitches to a big Olympic audience. Paris, London, New York, Madrid and Moscow are sending high-level delegations to a conference in Berlin this weekend to present their bids to Olympic sports federations leaders.
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota was ordered to hand over certain arms deal documents to Richard Young by the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Young’s company CCII Systems lost out on a contract to supply combat technology for the South African navy’s new corvettes.
Common roots tying them to Africa with an emotional bond make it possible for the ANC and the Afrikanerbond to work together, and for members of the New National Party to join the ANC, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Mbeki said the decision to dissolve the New National Party and the meeting between the ANC and the Afrikanerbond constituted an important stride forward.
A biography of politician Patricia De Lille had ”devastating consequences” for three women whose identities and HIV positive status were disclosed in the book, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Friday. The women now lived in ”constant fear” of their family and communities finding out their status, advocate Daniel Berger, appearing for the Aids Law Project, told the court.
The Chinese authorities are bracing themselves for further anti-Japanese protests which could become one of the biggest displays of people power there since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. Internet activists are calling for demonstrations in more than a dozen cities this weekend, prompting the United States embassy to issue safety warnings to its citizens.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday named a new 30-strong Cabinet, recycling most of the loyal stalwarts who have presided over the Southern African nation for last two decades. Among the few new faces is the former ambassador to the United Nations, Tichaona Jokonya, who was named Information Minister and replaces the controversial Jonathan Moyo sacked early this year.
The Michael Jackson trial reached what is expected to be its pivotal moment on Friday when defence attorneys for the 46-year-old singer began their cross-examination of the mother of the teenage accuser. Discussing her early belief that Jackson did not drink alcohol, Janet Arvizo told the jury: ”I now know different. I now know that Neverland is all about booze, pornography and sex with boys.”
Britain and the United States reacted angrily on Friday to accusations by the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, that they were partly to blame for the oil-for-food scandal because for years they had overlooked the illegal trade in Iraqi crude.
Former Independent Democrats Western Cape leader Lennit Max on Thursday sought to link the party’s national leader, Patricia de Lille, to the Travelgate affair. De Lille heatedly denied any wrongdoing, and said that as one of a number of clients of one of the implicated travel agencies, she had given her full co-operation to investigators.