Australia matched its worst losing record in nearly 25 years on Saturday after its fourth consecutive rugby union test defeat, losing 22-19 against a rampant South Africa in the Tri-Nations series. A sellout record crowd of 43 278 at Subiaco Oval was not able to help the Wallabies overcome winger Bryan Habana’s two tries.
South African Airways (SAA) lodged an appeal on Friday against the Competition Tribunal’s R45 million fine imposed on the airline for abusing its dominant position in the domestic airline market.
Lobby group Doctors for Life International are taking four health bills, including one on abortion, to the Constitutional Court next week. The group want to see the speaker of the National Assembly, the chair of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and the Minister of Health in court on Tuesday.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on Friday went for a third consecutive day without trading as buyers shunned the bourse over the introduction of a new tax on profits. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa this week announced a 10% withholding tax on shares sold on the stock market beginning next month.
Pope Benedict XVI visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday in a clear sign that building better relations between the Catholic church and other faiths would play an important role in his papacy. The German pontiff, who served briefly and unwillingly in the Hitler Youth, visited the city-centre synagogue which was destroyed by the Nazis and later rebuilt.
He lived by the gun and he died by the gun. Now the late writer Hunter S Thompson is to be blasted from a cannon from the back garden of his home in the hills of Aspen, Colorado. Thompson’s ashes have been packed into firework casings and will be dispersed from 34 different shells fired from a gun barrel mounted on top of a 150-foot high monument.
After Bafana Bafana’s 4-1 ”roasting in Reykjavic” against Iceland, coach Stuart Baxter on Friday announced he was left with three options to lift spirits and form before next month’s critical away World Cup qualifying game against Burkina Faso.
Condemning the Scorpions’ raid on the office of the attorney of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the General Council of the Bar of South Africa on Friday called on them to return everything they had seized as soon as possible. The raid appeared to violate the principle of attorney-client privilege, the GCB charged.
To Australians, it is the linguistic equivalent of beer and barbecues — but the ubiquitous greeting of ”mate” was in danger of being banned at the nation’s centre of government. In an edict from a senior civil servant, security staff at Australia’s national parliament were told to stop using the greeting ”G’day mate” when admitting visitors and politicians.
Members of Zimbabwe’s football team are being rewarded for winning a regional tournament with plots of land cleared of township homes. The team, known as the Warriors, won the Confederation of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup on Sunday with a surprise 1-0 victory over Zambia in South Africa.