”Touchdown and toyi-toyi” — that is the mantra for the week ahead as hundreds of South African Airways pilots and thousands of gold miners prepare to meet on the ground for another wave of crippling strikes. On Thursday the South African Airways Pilots Association was locked in a meeting with SAA management and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration in an attempt to reach an agreement on a labour dispute
Fifteen months after then newly sworn in Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool proclaimed, ”The circus is over!”, it is the provincial African National Congress that looks sorely in need of a ringmaster. A sequence of tender scandals is destabilising the Cape Town City Council; executive mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo and Rasool are skirmishing openly.
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Iraqi leaders prepared on Thursday for a conference to try to break the deadlock on a draft Constitution amid unabated violence that left at least 20 people dead, a day after 15 United States marines were killed by rebels. US President George Bush insisted his troops will remain in Iraq until their mission is accomplished.
The death toll from days of rioting triggered by the death of John Garang hit 130 on Thursday as throngs of south Sudanese paid tribute to their revered former rebel leader on the journey to his final resting place. The streets of Khartoum were quieter after the frenzy of ethnically driven violence following Garang’s death.
Three children played happily on Thursday in the courtyard of an orphanage in the southern Niger town of Maradi. Only a month ago, the three were at death’s door as a result of severe malnutrition. But while they appear to have fully recovered, doctors warned that many other children might be affected for the rest of their lives.
Iran said on Thursday it will resume sensitive uranium-conversion work within one or two days, defying warnings from the international community over its nuclear programme. Iran agreed in November to suspend its enrichment and conversion work while negotiations with the Europeans were going on.
Ajax Cape Town opened the 2005/06 Premier Soccer League (PSL) season with a victory over Jomo Cosmos when they ran out 2-1 winners at the Athlone Stadium on Wednesday. The teams were level on one all at the interval. Ajax were the better side and were in complete control, but could not penetrate a solid defence.
Faced with the imposing task of playing one of the most important games in South African soccer history — the World Cup qualifier in Burkina Faso early in September — Bafana Bafana on Wednesday were hit by the news that the South African Football Association is struggling to secure a critical warm-up fixture for the national team’s ”shadow” World Cup line-up on August 17.
The International Rugby Board (IRB) announced in Cape Town on Thursday that it has approved an unprecedented £30-million (R343,5-million), three-year programme of strategic development investments designed to improve the competitiveness of rugby worldwide.