Elite cycling outfit Astana of reigning Tour of Spain champion Alexandre Vinokourov were told on Monday they cannot compete in next month’s Vuelta because of recent doping scandals concerning the team. Vuelta organisers said in a statement that they were withdrawing the Swiss-based Kazakh team’s invitation for the September 1 to 23 race.
Former Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leader Motsoko Pheko is an opportunist who wants his dismissal from the party postponed forever, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Opposing Pheko’s court bid to stop the PAC replacing him as an MP, PAC legal representative advocate Thami Ncoagwane said Pheko had been making contradictory requests to various courts.
Africa is in a position to provide all 26Â 000 troops for the United Nations’s peacekeeping operation in Darfur, the head of the African Union said on Monday. Forces from countries outside the continent were not needed for the operation, in western Sudan, because African nations had already pledged sufficient numbers.
While stock markets are still reeling from the bad news surrounding subprime lending in the United States, a similar meltdown is unlikely in South Africa, according to Jack Trevena, MD of bond originator BondExcel and ex-CEO of Nedbank home loans. He explains that the US home-loan market is completely different to the South African home-loan market.
Rescue teams searched on Monday for 13 people missing after weekend landslides buried a village in western Kenya but a humanitarian worker said it was unlikely they would be found alive. ”We don’t hold out any hope of finding survivors,” said Tony Mwangi, a spokesperson for the Kenya Red Cross.
The 24-hour power failure at Johannesburg’s Coronation Hospital on the weekend should serve as a wake-up call on maintenance work, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. Jack Bloom, Gauteng health spokesperson for the party, warned that hospitals in the province were at dire risk because maintenance contracts had been cancelled.
It was like Through the Keyhole meets America’s Most Wanted. But in this peculiar episode of celebrity justice, the accused star, arm-in-arm with his glamorous young wife, greeted the snoopers at the door to his palatial home. Once again, Phil Spector was where he likes to be, at the centre of attention.
The Department of Minerals and Energy said on Monday that it wants to create a new industry around nuclear energy. Speaking at the release of the draft Nuclear Energy Policy and Strategy for public comment, the department’s director general, Sandile Noxina, said such a new industry would lead to the creation of jobs.
Villagers returned home to ruins as flood waters continued to recede on Monday but the toll from the annual monsoon flooding across South Asia rose to 2Â 300, officials said. Tens of thousands are still housed in shelters while millions more are dependent on food and medical aid.
Central banks in Europe and Japan pumped out tens of billions more dollars on Monday to help commercial banks hit by the United States home-loan sector crisis, as shares bounced back from a turbulent week. The European Central Bank injected another €47,66-billion after putting a record €155,85-billion into the market last Thursday and Friday.