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Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan on Wednesday paid tribute to Bill Flynn after the actor’s death a week ago. ”It is with deep sadness and regret indeed that we have learnt of the passing on of Mr Bill Flynn who was, undoubtedly, one of the most highly gifted performers in South Africa,” said the minister in a statement.
Quick Step rider Cedric Vasseur gave the hosts their first stage win of this year’s Tour de France when he lead a French one-two ahead of compatriot Sandy Casar in the 229,5km tenth stage on Wednesday. The 36-year-old Vasseur won a sprint finish after five hours 20 minutes and 24 seconds of racing under the sweltering heat ahead of Casar, with Swiss rider Michael Albasini in third.
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Football legends past and present gathered on Wednesday at the former South African prison colony that housed Nelson Mandela for 18 years to honour the statesman on his 89th birthday. Current players, along with former maestros, joined administrators and some of Mandela’s fellow former political prisoners on Robben Island off the Cape coast to kick a symbolic 89 goals into a football net.
Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, warned residents on Wednesday to guard against outbreaks of disease as it was forced to cut their water supply. Authorities said they had decommissioned one of Bulawayo’s three remaining dams because water levels were too low.
A meeting to avert a possible strike in the industrial-chemical sector was unsuccessful on Wednesday, trade union Solidarity said. Spokesperson Marius Croucamp said a meeting between employees and the union failed to yield results. Employers in this sector were offering a 7,5% wage increase and unions were demanding 10%.
The decision to prosecute apartheid-era minister law and order Adriaan Vlok is not a departure from reconciliation, the South African Council of Churches said on Wednesday. ”[The decision] seeks to strengthen it [reconciliation] by bringing out the truth,” said the SACC’s newly elected president, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been assigned a new team of lawyers to defend him against war-crimes charges at a United Nations-backed court in The Hague, a court document revealed on Wednesday. Taylor (59), the first African head of state to stand trial before an international court for war crimes, had boycotted the opening of his trial and sacked his lawyer.
Thirty-seven people died in a 16-hour thunder storm in south-west China that caused heavy flooding and brought air, road and rail traffic to a halt, the government and state media said on Wednesday. Chongqing municipality received 266,6mm of rain between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, the largest volume since records began in 1892, Xinhua news agency said.
Tour golfers are taking performance-enhancing drugs and escaping sanction because the sport does not have dope testing, Gary Player said on the eve of the 136th Open Championship. ”I know there are golfers doing it [taking drugs], whether it’s HGH [human growth hormone], whether it’s creatine or whether it’s steroids,” Player said.