Chelsea players would be well advised not to coast when they gather for pre-season training early next month. Jose Mourinho made clear on his first morning as manager at Stamford Bridge that he wants to cut the squad to 24 and feels he will need 15 days working with his team to decide whom he wants to keep.
I was reminded of that rather dated joke when reading Barry Ronge’s always entertaining column in last week’s Sunday Times Magazine. Ronge was enthusing about a new play from noted American playwright Edward Albee that is entitled, quite simply, The Goat, since that’s what it is about. A quite respectable married man brings home a goat called Sylvia and announces to his family that she is his mistress.
A legal battle is looming between the Inkatha Freedom Party and its ally in the Coalition for Change, the Democratic Alliance, over who is the official opposition in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature. The dispute is likely to threaten the continued survival of the Coalition for Change. At the heart of these tensions is whether the minority partner IFP can also be the official opposition.
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Institutions mandated by the Constitution to "support constitutional democracy" — specifically the Public Protector and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) — should be merged to curb costs and spread their know-how, says former HRC chairperson Barney Pityana. However, the deputy chairperson of the Gender Commission believes there is still room for the organisations to exist separately.
South African cellphone network Vodacom will still be sued in the Nigerian High Court for inducement of breach of contract, plaintiff Econet Wireless International said on Thursday. Econet Wireless Nigeria was Vodacom’s Nigerian partner until Monday, when the South African company abruptly terminated a five-year agreement.
The National Prosecuting Authority is guilty of discrimination if it does not prosecute the 37 African National Congress leaders who were refused amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but continues to prosecute other citizens, says the Freedom Front Plus.
Several mortars were fired on Thursday at the Italian embassy in Baghdad, causing some Iraqi deaths, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said. No Italians were hurt in the attack, it said. The attack came hours before the arrival in Italy of United States President George Bush for talks with Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
On the eve of a federal council meeting to discuss the future of the New National Party following its poor performance in April’s national and provincial elections, the party’s Gauteng administrative office has closed. The move is in no way a sign of the party’s imminent dissolution in Gauteng, provincial leader Johan Kilian said.
A South African business chamber urged the government on Thursday to rename two departments so that they could become more focused. ”We are working on a detailed proposal and we are going to submit it to the government. We feel it must be considered,” said South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) chief executive James Lennox.