South African Airways’ fuel levy for international flights is to increase from R155 to R186, the company said on Friday. The levy for flights to and from Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe was now around R124 per flight.
Trade union federations expressed satisfaction on Friday with a government assurance that workers’ rights would not be tampered with. Unions were concerned that government plans to review the impact of the current regulatory environment on small and medium enterprises would impact on workers’ rights.
John Paul II was slipping towards the close of his momentous 27-year papacy last night, his breathing shallow and his heart and kidneys close to failing. Tens of thousands flocked into St Peter’s Square below the twin lights of his Vatican apartment to pray for the 84-year-old Pope as his conditioned worsened.
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President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party secured a two-thirds majority on Saturday, winning 71 seats which along with 30 seats appointed directly by the president carried it to a major victory. Mugabe (81) will now be able to rewrite his country’s Constitution unopposed.
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Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa Simon Khaya Moyo on Saturday criticised British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s statement, saying it was ”irresponsible and irrelevant”. Straw said the parliamentary election in Zimbabwe was marked by irregularities and was not free and fair.
It is back to the judiciary we go again on the moral mess that is football. Soon we will find something to talk about other than Chelsea and Jose Mourinho (not that he minds) but, for the time being, they remain at the centre of the most important debate in football since the start of the Premiership in 1992.
David Beckham is handsome, boyishly charming, well muscled and makes no pretension of articulacy, virtues that in more sane societies than our own would have guaranteed him riches beyond the dreams of avarice — or even Michael Schumacher. Yet he is forced to hawk his services around Europe, struggling by on just £22 000 a year.
The Marburg virus has reached a fourth province in Angola, bringing the nationwide toll from the Ebola-like disease to 130, Angola’s health ministry and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. The official death toll from the disease had stood at 126 on Thursday, since the worst global outbreak of the virus started six months ago.
Thousands of people packed St Peter’s Square on Friday as Pope John Paul II’s health deteriorated. They prayed and gazed up at his third-floor window in a quiet vigil repeated in churches around the world. In South Africa, Catholics were praying for a peaceful end for the pope and churches were preparing special masses.
Ms Wheelchair Wisconsin has been stripped of her title because pageant officials say she can stand — and point to a newspaper picture as proof. Janeal Lee, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a scooter, was snapped by The Post-Crescent newspaper standing among her high school maths students.