Listed retailer Edgars Consolidated Stores (Edcon) has teamed up with Standard Bank to offer qualifying Edcon store-card clients a MasterCard, the first credit card available in South Africa to carry no annual fee. The partnership will provide a credit card to Edcon’s customers who have a proven credit track record.
Ariel Sharon widened the breach with his former allies among the settler leaders on Sunday on Sunday by accusing them of causing unnecessary suffering for political gain during the Gaza Strip pullout. The prime minister’s attack came as forces moved into some of the last of the Gaza settlements still to be cleared, meeting with protest but little physical resistance.
The four distinguished visitors looked on in awe at the sight before them. Exit Glacier in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords national park is one of continental America’s most imposing monuments, and last week it was at its most impressive — a hulk of ice and snow imperceptibly making its way toward the sea.
Pope Benedict XVI wrapped up his first foreign tour on Sunday with an uncompromising warning that Catholics must strictly follow the church’s teachings. Addressing nearly one million young pilgrims, many of whom had camped overnight in a muddy field outside Cologne, the pope said that Christians should not choose the bits of doctrine they liked and ignore the rest.
Iraq’s oil exports were shut down on Monday by a power cut that darkened parts of central and southern Iraq, including the country’s only functioning oil export terminals, oil officials said. Exports through the country’s other main route, the northern export pipeline to Turkey, have long been halted by incessant sabotage.
Blue Bulls flanker forward Danie Rossouw will join the Springbok rugby squad on Tuesday in Dunedin after he received the call on Saturday night to replace his injured provincial teammate Pedrie Wannenburg. Wannenburg returned home after he sustained an injury to his lower back during the Springbok’s penultimate training session before the Tri-Nations clash with the Wallabies.
Six youth organisations on Sunday condemned last week’s raids on the houses and associates of former deputy president Jacob Zuma. The organisations said they doubted if Zuma would have a fair trial and congratulated his body guards for ”attempting to redeem the dignity of our deputy president”.
Thousands of Zimbabweans made homeless by the government’s slum clearance are living in ”desperate” conditions, according to a clandestine video smuggled out and released by Amnesty International. The video was made earlier this month at Hopley Farm, outside Harare, and shows a makeshift camp with tents of sheeting.
The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon. One of last week’s victims was a young man in a black tracksuit.
FBI agents have thwarted an alleged plan by an Ohio couple to sell a 15-year-old girl in exchange for a packet of cocaine. Police say Pamela Tilley and Gregory Lowery drove about 110km from their home to hand the girl over to a drugs dealer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was destined to become a child prostitute.