New coach Carlos Alberto Parreira’s desire to organise more regular matches for his new team as they prepare for the 2010 World Cup finals has seen South Africa announce a friendly later this month against Bolivia. South Africa will host the South Americans in Durban or Johannesburg on March 28, just days after returning from an African Nations Cup qualifier in Chad.
China defended its booming oil trade with Africa on Monday, and said Europe and the United States should look at their own engagement on the continent before criticising Beijing. China has huge oil investments in Sudan, and rights groups say its engagement there is frustrating international efforts to stop the civil war and atrocities in Darfur.
South Africa is struggling to contain an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is sending a permanent staff member to help, reported the Lancet. The medical journal said the WHO TB expert would advise the Health Department on how to deal with the outbreak of the often-fatal XDR-TB.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho found himself engulfed by controversy once again on Monday after television microphones apparently caught him calling referee Mike Riley a ”son of a whore” in Portuguese during Sunday’s FA Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur.
A number of former Fidentia employees have gathered outside the Cape Town offices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Monday. About 80 retrenched workers want the body’s intervention into what they call ”unfair labour practices” by the company’s interim curators.
A Chinese lawmaker has proposed a "dog tax" to help discourage skyrocketing ownership of the pets and pay for faeces clean-up and rabies prevention, state media reported on Monday. Dog ownership is on the rise in China as urbanites find room in their increasingly comfortable lives for the status symbol of a pet.
A German court was forced on Monday to postpone the end of a civil case featuring Gustav the ostrich whose owner claims was made impotent by firecrackers thrown into his enclosure. The court in the eastern town of Bautzen had hoped to find an agreement between the owner and three teenagers suspected of throwing the fireworks in 2005.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Monday called on President Thabo Mbeki to urgently review the government’s approach to Zimbabwe after Sunday’s arrest of opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The South Africa government should condemn this latest crackdown on a legitimate democratic protest, he said.
South Africa’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has scored a major breakthrough with the taxi business fraternity in what could culminate in the registration of more than 40Â 000 taxi operators in Gauteng alone, according to a release from the Labour Department on Monday.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress and the official opposition Democratic Alliance have been urged by Independent Democrats member of Parliament Lance Greyling to ”give back the money” they received from slain businessman Brett Kebble ”without a fight”.