The South African wheelchair basketball team have avoided the big guns in the pool stages of the Beijing Paralympics. South Africa have been drawn in Pool A with world number-one side Canada, but will not have to contend with Pool B powerhouses the United States, Australia and Britain.
All the talk before Monday’s Nedbank Cup draw centred on a potential final between Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns — with the gnawing proviso, of course, that the Premier Soccer League glamour clubs were not pitted against each other in the last-16 round. But the improbable did occur, amid gasps of amazement and disbelief.
There are obstacles hampering trade between South Africa and Indonesia that need to be addressed, President Thabo Mbeki said on Monday. He was speaking after hosting his Indonesian counterpart, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, at the Union Buildings for bilateral talks.
The South African National Taxi Council launched a ”taxi pledge” on Monday. The spotlight has been on taxi violence recently after a 25-year-old woman was stripped and assaulted by taxi drivers at Johannesburg’s Noord Street taxi rank because she was wearing a miniskirt.
The University of the Free State on Monday asked for proposals on the future of its Reitz men’s residence from various affected parties. A racist video surfaced at the institution last month, made by former students living in the Reitz hostel. The video features black university employees on their knees eating food that had apparently been urinated on by a white student.
It may be the world’s oldest profession, but prostitution is using some 21st-century tricks. The prostitution scandal involving now former New York governor Eliot Spitzer lays bare some of the inner workings of modern-day sex work: SMSing to clock in the client, electronic fund transfers, a website featuring photos, prices and rankings.
News Corporation and NBC Universal has begun offering free online television to the United States public through internet joint venture Hulu.com. The much-anticipated online service boasts a rich library of shows and films people can view old-fashioned television style — supported by advertising.
The case against a 36-year-old man, accused of murdering 11 KwaZulu-Natal women and dumping their bodies in sugar-cane fields, was postponed on Monday in the Umzinto Magistrate’s Court for further investigation. Magistrate Giel van Aarde postponed the case until April 23.
The first witness in the drunken-driving case of Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride told the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday that he was told he and his family would be murdered if he did not help in a cover-up for McBride. ”He wasn’t sober enough to drive,” the witness said.
The former secretary general of the South African National Civics Organisation, Thozamile Gwanya, has been appointed Director General of Agriculture and Land Affairs, the department said on Monday. Gwanya, who matriculated in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, holds a BCom degree from the University of Transkei.