On the eve of the Springboks’ departure to Australia for the away leg of their Tri-Nations campaign, coach Jake White rejected allegations made by former Sharks coach Kevin Putt that lock Victor Matfield wears a metal plate under the bandage on his arm. White said these rumours are a malicious act because the Boks are doing well.
Rivers run low, crops wither, livestock starve to death and wildfires rage on the Iberian peninsula in the grip of a devastating drought that makes it look like the Sahara is reaching out across the Mediterranean. The peninsula’s fiercest drought in 60 years is seen as a further sign of desertification in the region.
Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano has been appointed the African Union’s mediator for Zimbabwe, tasked with brokering talks between the ruling party and the opposition, a state-run newspaper reported on Wednesday. The report was confirmed by AU spokesperson Adam Thiam in Addis Ababa.
About 500 striking municipal workers, many of them fired up by cheap wine and brandy, threw rocks, lumps of concrete and bottles at police and dumped mounds of rubbish in Cape Town’s Adderley Street during a march on Wednesday. Police threw a stun grenade as the stone-throwing continued.
Following the introduction of MTN Banking, a joint venture between MTN Group and Standard Bank, more than 20-million cellphone users will now be a phone call away from a MobileMoney account. The venture takes a revolutionary approach and builds a mobile bank that primarily resides on a SIM card.
Terrorists are sizing up the City of London, Europe’s premier financial centre, and an attack on the teeming district is only a matter of time, its chief of police warned on Wednesday. A debate continues to rage over how to deal with hard-line Islamists suspected of promoting terrorism among Britain’s 1,6-million Muslims.
I was watching a programme on Ghengis Khan recently, and with Women’s Day having just passed, it made me realise that at least in some societies women have made tremendous advances. In Khan’s day, 800 years ago, women captured in battle were part of the spoils of victory. Khan’s first wife and mother of three of his sons was one of these spoils of battle.
South Africa is rolling out a new lightning detection system to track the atmospheric phenomenon across the country. ”The need for real-time lightning information to supplement the advanced high spatial and temporal weather radar and satellite systems in a lightning-prone country is regarded as an essential component to the services required by the South African community,” said South African Weather Services spokesperson Bheki Zwane.
Waterborne weenie waving has become an unwanted side dish at a waterside restaurant in a popular tourist haunt across the bay from San Francisco, the manager lamented humorously on Tuesday. ”Most of the diners think it is quite comical,” said Jeff Scharosch, manager of The Spinnaker restaurant in the town of Sausalito.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday threatened to close several local newspapers if they persist in publishing conspiracy theories about the death of Sudanese Vice President John Garang. At a memorial ceremony for the seven Ugandan crew who died with Garang, Museveni said such reports were a threat to regional security and that he would not tolerate them.