South Africa can make a rapid return to second spot in the ICC Test Championship table if it can win the forthcoming away series against Sri Lanka starting in Galle on Wednesday. South Africa fell outside the top two in the official Test table for the first time when the ratings were updated at the end of last month.
Chelsea’s midfielder Claude Makelele believes Arsenal will lose ”40% of the team” if French international teammate Patrick Vieira is sold to Real Madrid. The Spanish Cadena SER radio station, which has close links to Real Madrid, reported on Tuesday that Arsenal have agreed to sell Vieira to Real Madrid for €35-million.
Under-fire England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who had been due to face a Football Association (FA) grilling on Tuesday over the sleazy sex scandal that has engulfed the ruling body in London, will now face his inquisitors on Wednesday instead. The FA council will meet on Thursday to discuss Eriksson’s future.
The Confederation of African Football has announced that the draw for the fourth women’s version of the African Cup of Nations will take place in Johannesburg on August 19. Tournament coordinator Sipho Nkumane said eight countries, including the hosts South Africa’s Banyana Banyana, will battle it out for top honours.
The African Union plans to transform a small force it was due to send to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region into a 2 000-strong peacekeeping mission, an AU official said on Wednesday. The pan-African body was already planning to send about 300 troops to Darfur to protect its observers and monitors in the country.
Thousands march on UN in Sudan
Britain and the United States on Tuesday night faced fresh allegations of abuses after a British terror suspect said an SAS soldier had interrogated him for three hours while an American colleague pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him.
Click on image for full-size view.
A car bomb exploded on Tuesday at an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint outside the city of Baqouba, killing at least four guardsmen and wounding six others, Iraqi authorities said. Earlier on Tuesday, a roadside bomb attack killed a local police chief and another officer in Baghdad.
Disgruntled municipal workers disrupted a meeting of the Tshwane Bargaining Council in Centurion on Tuesday and held officials there against their will. Tshwane Metro Council spokesperson William Baloyi said the group was angry about an apparent double deduction from their bank accounts in lieu of loan repayments.
About 35 workers may be retrenched from the Sowetan and the Sowetan Sunday World, following the newspapers’ recent purchase by Johnnic Communications, the Media Workers Association (Mwasa) said on Tuesday. The feared job losses stem from the purchase of the two newspapers from New Africa Publishing Limited.