President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has upstaged George Bush’s Latin American tour in a show of political theatre that this weekend saw insults hurled across the River Plate. The socialist firebrand turned a rally in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, into a platform to assail the US president as he flew into neighbouring Uruguay.
An anti-crime petition with an estimated 200 000 signatures and a memorandum demanding a crime-free and corruption-free South Africa were handed to officials by marchers in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban on Saturday. ”We will use every avenue … to ensure that people’s rights are no longer violated,” said Shane Pillay, national coordinator of the South Africans against Crime campaign.
Zimbabwean police on Saturday vowed to block an anti-government rally planned in Harare by a coalition of opposition and rights groups on Sunday. National police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told journalists police had received information from a whistleblower that the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change was arming youths to engage in violent protests across the country.
Bryan Habana and Fourie de Preez scored two tries each as South Africa’s Bulls crushed the New South Wales Waratahs 32-19 in a Super 14 match at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday. Habana scored twice down the left wing after following up kicks while scrumhalf de Preez scored two solo tries.
South Africa still has a long way to go to throw off its ”ethnic blinkers”, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said, referring to his party’s leadership race. ”We are still held back by the prejudices and wrong-headed decisions of the past,” Leon told the party’s Gauteng congress at the Benoni High School on the East Rand.
An opening scoring blitz set up the Auckland Blues for a 41-14 drubbing of the Golden Lions to stay on top of the Super 14 rugby table in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday. The Blues took maximum points from the game with six tries, two of them to winger Doug Howlett, who finished the game level with former Brumbie Joe Roff’s Super rugby record of 57 tries.
An anti-crime petition demanding a crime-free and corruption-free South Africa with an estimated 70 000 signatures was handed to Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo’s office on Saturday. The grou Vicptims in the Republic of South Africa marched from the Johannesburg CBD to Masondo’s office where they handed a memorandum and petition to a mayoral official.
Two security guards were seriously injured when a group of nine armed men assaulted them with hammers and took money from their cash van in Olifantsfontein, East Rand police said on Saturday. Spokesperson Captain Jethro Mtshali said the men allegedly approached the SBV van at a stop street at 8am on Saturday, held the guards at gun point and assaulted them with hammers.
A militant Islamist group in Iraq has threatened in a videotape showing two purported German hostages to execute them if the Berlin government fails to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The Kataeb Siham al-Haq (Righteous Arrows Battalions) said in the videotape posted on Saturday on an Islamist website: "We give the German government 10 days from the date of this statement …"
The Safety and Security Ministry has spent more than R100-million for private security to patrol premises of the South African Police Services in 2005 and 2006, the Saturday Star newspaper reported on Saturday. In a written response to Democratic Alliance MP Donald Lee, Minister Charles Nqakula said this was done so as to make it possible for police to fight and prevent crime.