Four tries by wing Giscard Pieters helped the Free State Cheetahs to a 52-19 win over the hapless Pumas in a compulsory friendly rugby match played at Nelspruit on Saturday. After leading only 19-7 at half-time, the Cheetahs opened the flood gates in the second with Pieters the obvious hero of the day.
Free State Stars’ Dio Sibisi scored a brace to help his team beat Lamontville Golden Arrows 2-0 in front of a sizeable crowd in their first Premier Soccer League game played at home at the Gobel Park Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Stars led 1-0 at the break. Striker Sibisi received a back pass in the 35th minute and struck a lightning shot.
Herschelle Gibbs smashed a century and skipper Graeme Smith made 96 as South Africa coasted to a comfortable eight-wicket win over Zimbabwe in their second one-day international on Saturday. Gibbs made 111, his 17th limited-overs century, off 100 balls with 16 fours and two sixes at the Harare Sports Club.
Orlando Pirates coach Bibey Mutombo was whisked away in a police vehicle when his team lost 1-0 to Bidvest Wits FC in a Castle Premiership game at the Bidvest Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Marawaan Bantam scored in the 61st minute to seal victory for Wits and condemn Pirates to their second loss of the season.
Three explosions within minutes, one at a street-side food stall and two in an amusement park, killed at least 34 people in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday, police and officials said. More than 50 people were wounded in the blasts in a city with a history of communal violence.
South Africa ran in three first-half tries on their way to a morale-boosting 27-3 World Cup warm-up win over Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday. The Scots had dominated in the opening quarter only to be floored by a burst of three Springbok tries in six dramatic minutes.
At least 44 people have died in two violent fires raging in the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece, officials said on Saturday, warning that the death toll could climb. Among the latest victims were a mother and her four children, aged five to 15, who were engulfed by the fire on the road near the village of Mahista, along with seven other victims, police said.
An indefinite vehicle curfew was imposed on Baghdad from 6pm local time on Saturday to maintain security for an upcoming Shi’ite religious event, an Iraqi military spokesperson said. Brigadier General Qassim al-Moussawi said the curfew was put in place to protect citizens ahead of a pilgrimage to mark the birth of Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, which falls early next week.
Gauteng police raided a counterfeit DVD syndicate and found approximately R10-million-worth of DVDs and equipment in a flat in Winchester Hills, south of Johannesburg, on Saturday. Three South African women and a man from Pakistan were arrested in the flat after an anonymous tip-off was sent to a media company’s crime line.
Sudan said on Saturday it has invited back a European Commission envoy who was expelled a day earlier for "interfering" in domestic affairs, following an apology. "Sudan has accepted the apology of Louis Michel, the European development commissioner, to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ali al-Sadek said.