Organisers of a performance-art show featuring 100 naked women had to call in police reinforcements to control a long and impatient queue of people, police said on Saturday. Scuffles broke out late on Friday as people tried to jump over the barriers to get closer to the women.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world tuned in to watch Pope John Paul II’s funeral on television, but more people in The Netherlands watched Prince Charles’s wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles, according to figures published on Sunday. About 1,9-million people in The Netherlands watched Saturday’s royal wedding.
South African banking group Absa has acquired a 50% controlling stake in Banco Comercial Angolano, a financial services provider based in Luanda, Angola. The stake, which entitles Absa to board and management control of BCA, was acquired for $7,5-million. The balance of shares will continue to be privately owned by Angolan residents.
A deluge in the drought-stricken Western Cape has been both welcomed and cursed, as early-morning traffic was severely disrupted on Monday. A weather forecaster said a black south-easter, caused by a ”cut-off low pressure system”, had brought heavy rainfall to the region over the 24 hours to 8am on Monday.
In an attempt to quell violence, the Western Cape transport department will close certain taxi ranks and routes in the Cape Town area from 4pm on Monday. The measure follows unsuccessful attempts at resolving a dispute between rival taxi associations. At least three people have died in shootings related to the dispute.
Graeme Smith completed his ninth Test hundred and helped South Africa grind their way to a slender first innings lead of 23 in the second Test against West Indies on Sunday. Smith top scored for the visitors with a gritty 148 that anchored his side to 370 for six, replying to the West Indies’ first innings total of 347, when stumps were drawn on the third day.
Just when the chasing pack convinced themselves that Tiger Woods was human after all and there was nothing to fear from the player who in 2000 and 2001 took golf to a level never before seen, the nightmare is back. After a nearly three-year ”slump” as he rebuilt his swing, the world number one is back.
Rand Merchant Bank on Monday unveiled its latest securitisation of auto loans and leases for BMW Financial Services — a R1,4-billion issue consisting of nine categories of notes of varying maturities. The notes, which will be listed on the Bond Exchange of South Africa on April 15 this year, target two principal classes of investor.
The Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, in place for two months, has been given its stiffest test by the Israeli army killing three teenagers in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, shortly before the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, left for a meeting in Texas on Monday with United States President George Bush.
The party that introduced apartheid and enforced racial segregation in South Africa for nearly 50 years disbanded and apologised for its racist policies on Sunday, after an attempt to reinvent itself failed. The dissolution of the New National Party was sharply criticised by the former leader and apartheid South African president FW de Klerk.