Only 56% of 18-year-old African matriculants believe they have a good chance of landing a job within three years, compared with 85% of their white and 78% of their coloured counterparts, according to a survey of Cape Town youth. The survey of youngsters aged 14 to 22 also found that 22% of white 15-year-old boys worked in part-time jobs while at school, while only 1% of African male learners did.
While international attention focuses on the 62 convicted coup plotters whose release was blocked in Zimbabwe this week, the 11 men still imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea may be slowly starving to death. This emerged both from prisoners’ notes smuggled out of Black Beach prison in Malabo and from a leaked report by human rights monitors.
Rinus Michels confronted a major tournament for the last time at Euro 92. Holland, steered by him, had won the competition four years earlier, but it was not pride alone that made him defend the title. He was 64 then and, having undergone heart surgery in the 1980s, knew that he should sidestep the stress of the finals.
If you wanted to understand why no South African team has ever won the Super 12 you could do no better than study the four games that made up two-thirds of round two of the competition this year. In Canberra on Friday a Bulls side that bases its entire tactical approach upon a dominant pack and a reliable goal kicker scrummed poorly and missed vital kicks.
Any discussion of Birmingham City and their trophy-less fans starts on the basis of sympathy. This is only partly to do with Steve Bruce’s current failure to produce in the Blues any kind of high-powered Premiership resurrection. It has do to with their accent (think Nigell Mansell) and their city, a huge concrete jungle that is essentially Dullsville UK.
Chelsea were on an emotional peak at the close of the win over Barcelona but Jose Mourinho is still in the foothills of his mission in England. The manager has said as much before when predicting that the best of his team will not be seen until his third year at Stamford Bridge. Tuesday brought one of the most memorable nights in the club’s history but it also showed just what Mourinho meant.
Cairo, as well as being the site of many of the world’s greatest, most mysterious treasures, is a pollution-ridden, overpopulated, not particularly pretty city. That this does not completely overwhelm its charms is actually the greatest miracle of all. It is brilliant if you haven’t much time to squeeze all the sights in — you can get to the great pyramid in about 15 minutes from central Cairo.
Olympic inspectors visiting Paris were among a lucky minority able to move freely around the French capital on Thursday as public sector workers brought the country grinding to a halt, severely disrupting buses, trains and flights, shutting schools and leaving papers undelivered and radio stations silent.
A pair of spectacles, a set of keys, a student card, a watch, a few euros, a single grey trainer. Rita Betancourt removes the objects delicately from a small green box and places them on the table of the immaculate suburban home where she and her husband, Luis Tenesaca, now live alone.
REM rocked Jo’burg on Thursday night and, as usual, didn’t disappoint. In terms of value for money, patrons certainly got what they paid for — the hits just went on and on and on, with the lighting system adding real gloss to the presentation. Lisa Johnston was there.