Cats coach Frans Ludeke was on Wednesday relieved of his duties as Lions coach for this season’s Currie Cup. South Africa Under-19 coach and Ludeke’s assistant at the Lions, Eugene Eloff, was announced as the man to take the Lions’ hot seat at a press briefing held in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
About 620 000 people were evacuated from southern China on Wednesday as Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest storm to date to hit the region at this time of year, churned towards the coastal province of Guangdong. The province also ordered more than 58 000 fishing boats and other vessels to return to their home ports.
Thousands of residents fled Liberia’s second-largest commercial city of Ganta after hundreds of young men from the Mano ethnic group attacked homes of the rival Mandingos early on Wednesday, an Agence France-Presse reporter in the town witnessed.
The late Ismail Mahomed, a former chief justice, once described the Constitution of a nation as more than a simple statute that mechanically defines the structure of government. He saw it rather as a "mirror reflecting the national soul", the identification of the nation’s ideals and aspirations; the articulation of the values bonding its people and disciplining its government.
Justin Gatlin’s world-record time in the men’s 100m has been amended from 9,76 seconds to 9,77sec, equalling but not bettering the previous mark, world athletics governing body IAAF announced on Wednesday. Gatlin was timed at 9,76sec at an IAAF Grand Prix meeting in Doha, Qatar, on May 12, a mark which was one-hundredths of a second faster than the existing world record.
A total of 300 000 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members will on Thursday join the national general strike called for by the Congress of South African Trade Unions against joblessness, the NUM said on Wednesday. "The right to work is an important and fundamental aspect of any society," said NUM general secretary Gwede Mantashe.
As Zimbabwe implodes economically, an increasing number of its citizens are applying for visas to head south. There were already an estimated two million Zimbabweans in South Africa illegally, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad told a media briefing at Parliament on Wednesday.
The bail of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni was extended by the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday, pending a petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal to appeal against his four-year jail sentence. His R10Â 000 bail was, however, increased to R30Â 000. He was given until the end of the day to pay the additional bail.
Freelance writer Yang Tianshui has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in China on subversion charges, in one of the country’s most severe media crackdowns since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989. Yang was convicted after being accused of posting articles on foreign websites, receiving money from abroad and helping a would-be opposition party.
A visit by South African President Thabo Mbeki to Palestine is being discussed with that nation’s president as well as the new Hamas government, but any visit will be judged against its contribution to peace in the area, said South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad, on Wednesday.