South African officials were struggling on Tuesday night to gain access to two nationals detained in Pakistan who are said to have confessed to planning terrorist attacks in Johannesburg. Foreign Affairs Department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said South Africa’s diplomatic mission in Islamabad had failed to gain permission to visit the men, who were being held somewhere in Lahore.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119782&t=1">’Terror’ pair were to ‘attack Jo’burg'</a>
France’s 35-hour working week is coming under increasingly heavy fire for undermining economic growth and discouraging job creation. The reasoning of the politicians who pushed for the shorter week had a surface appeal — high unemployment will fall if people in jobs work fewer hours. Employers will hire more workers. If only the world worked that way.
"South Africans went to the brink of full-out civil war in the 1980s, but decided to go shopping instead." This description of the transition to democracy — by an unnamed Pan Africanist Congress cadre quoted by Graeme Addison in <i>The Media</i> magazine a while ago — came to mind while watching SABC3’s <i>Media Focus</i> two weeks ago. The programme featured a new SABMiller advert.
In the long-term, nanotechnology — or the technology of very small particles — could generate big benefits for global society, such as cheap sustainable energy and better methods for disease diagnosis and treatment. But there is a risk that different capabilities to develop and exploit new technologies will create a "nano-divide" between rich and poor nations in the more immediate future.
Chicken Licken. That’s what it sounds like — my name if I were to marry my beloved and take on his name. Megan Egan. No can do. But the unhappy rhyme is not the real reason I’d never take his name, although there’s nothing remarkable about my own, except that it was derived from the Viking for ship tax collector.
One of the aims of the 2010 Soccer World Cup Organising Committee will be to ensure that South Africa are represented by a Bafana Bafana team that will make the country proud. This was confirmed on Tuesday by Irvin Khoza as the four-man Preparations Committee gave its first report back to the media.
The South African Olympic team left for Athens on Tuesday night. Speaking at a briefing at Johannesburg International airport, the team’s chef de mission, Hajera Kajee, said: ”Years of preparation, determination and hard work will culminate in a spectacular show of speed, strength and agility.
Just 10 days before the start of the Athens Games, the issue of corruption in the Olympic host-city bidding process is back under scrutiny. A BBC television news programme has secretly filmed four middlemen saying they could secure votes of International Olympic Committee members in the contest for the 2012 Summer Games.
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.