Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile, while congratulating the performance of rugby teams, still wants the South African Rugby Union to work on racial transformation in the sport. ”His praise of the teams does not in any way represent a change of heart on certain issues,” a departmental spokesperson said on Monday.
A United Nations envoy has extended her investigation of a so-called urban renewal drive that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to a second week. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s deputy minister of housing says the demolition of slums is part of the country’s national housing plan.
United States President George Bush will on Monday warn that he will not make concessions on climate change in return for British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s staunch support over Iraq. He acknowledged that human activity was ”to some extent” to blame for global warming, but made it clear he regards new technology as the key to halting it.
A taxi driver from the Dolphin Coast Taxi Association was shot dead at Shakaskraal on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, South African Broadcasting Corporation news said on Monday. Meanwhile, police are mediating between two rival taxi associations at Umhlali near Stanger.
Transnet CEO Maria Ramos hopes the transfer of national carrier South African Airways (SAA) to the government will be complete by March next year. Ramos said a joint team with representatives from Transnet, SAA and the Department of Public Enterprises is working on an exit strategy for the airline.
A day after Bob Geldof’s dazzling Live 8 concerts, his tie-in Sail 8 appeared a total disaster as just four boats — carrying a grand total of zero demonstrators — made it back to Britain from France. Participants admitted the stunt, designed to aid masses of continental protesters to reach the G8 summit demonstrations in Edinburgh, ”didn’t work” and was ”disappointing”.
The Medical Research Council plans to launch a national study on hospital infections later this year, council president Anthony Mbewu said on Monday. On Thursday, the Department of Health is expected to release a report into the causes of the deaths of 19 babies at KwaZulu-Natal’s Mahatma Gandhi memorial hospital.
The African Union inaugurated a two-day summit on Monday in Libya during which it is expected to hammer out a continental position on economic relations with the developed countries ahead of this week’s G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland. About 50 African leaders were gathered in the coastal city of Sirte for the event.
English league footballers admit they could have a different girl every night in their celebrity lifestyles. ”It wasn’t as often as a different girl every night, but it could have been,” Scotland striker Frank McAvennie recounts in a new book, Playing Away: The A-Z of Soccer Sex Scandals.
The decision on the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games took a distinctly political turn when French President Jacques Chirac decided to travel to Singapore to defend Paris’s candidacy ahead of the International Olympic Committee vote. There, he will be going head to head against British Prime Minister Tony Blair.