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The South African Rugby Union has ruled that all the contracted Springboks be withdrawn from their Absa Currie Cup squads for a month to take part in a conditioning programme following the Tri-Nations.

All non-contracted Springboks are available immediately for their provinces. The provinces have agreed to the move.

The Blue Bulls will be missing seven of its Springboks including Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and Morné Steyn.

The Sharks will be without Captain John Smit and four others. Schalk Burger, Jaque Fourie, Bryan Habana, Ricky Januarie and Andries Bekker will be absent from the Western Province side, while the Free State Cheetahs will miss Juan Smith, Henrich Brussow and CJ van der Linde.

All players have been given a programme by the Springboks’ conditioning and medical team.

They will report to Cape Town on October 4.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

There are allegations that Zambian police are routinely torturing detainees.

The American-based Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday prisoners are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment to extract confessions.

In its report on prison conditions in southern Africa, the organisation painted a grim picture of Zambia.

It calls on the Lusaka government to probe allegations that police hang suspects from ceilings and beat them to coerce confessions.

It said Zambia must curb police abuse, investigate violations and strengthen grievance mechanisms.

The mistreatment that has left victims scarred and incapacitated violates the rights of detainees and Zambia’s national, regional and international law commitments.

This is the second time this year Zambia’s been rapped for cruelty to prisoners.

The first was rejected by the government of President Rupiah Banda.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramay)

Mount Sinabung, in northern Sumatra island, first erupted on August 29. Villages on its slopes have been evacuated and around 24,500 people are living in refugee camps, disaster officials said.

"It was the biggest eruption yet and the sound was heard from 8 kilometres away. The smoke was 5,000 metres in the air," said Indonesia’s chief vulcanologist, Surono, who goes by only one name as do many Indonesians.

"I think this will not be the last eruption. It will happen again," he said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said the ground shook for around three minutes during the blast.

Heavy rain mixed with the ash to form muddy precipitation that is lying a centimetre thick on buildings and trees. Electricity in one village has been cut off, but there have so far been no casualties.

The area around the volcano is largely agricultural and the nearest big city is Medan, some 50 km away

Villages within a six kilometre (4 miles) radius of the volcano have emptied out, with only a handful of people staying behind to guard homes.

A Pretoria woman has described to Eyewitness News how her younger sister died in a frantic bid to escape a rapist who had abducted the teenager and her friend at gunpoint.

Henriette Farmer said 14-year-old Lazanne died on Sunday when she tried to call for help as they were driving through Kwaggasrand. She apparently broke her neck when she jumped out of the suspect’s bakkie.

“She removed her blindfold. She got excited, started screaming for help and banged the windows. The door opened and she jumped out,” Farmer explained.

The man did not stop. He left the teenager on the tar and drove her 16-year-old friend to a remote spot in the west of Pretoria on the R511 where he raped her. She was left there, but walked to a garage and called for help.

Police are searching for a man in his late 20s with blue eyes, who donned a wig and used a gun to force Farmer and her friend into his white bakkie in Elandspoort.

 
The police’s Dumisani Ndlazi said police will begin investigations into the matter and has appealed to the public to come forward with information.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, obtained by Reuters in Vienna on Monday, said the Islamic Republic was hampering its work in the country by barring some of its inspectors with Iran-specific experience.

The watchdog also voiced continued concern about possible activities in Iran to develop a nuclear-armed missile and urged Tehran to step up cooperation with the IAEA and grant access to relevant sites, equipment and personnel "without further delay."

Washington, which accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and spearheaded the adoption of tougher sanctions on Tehran in June, called the latest IAEA report "troubling."

Iranian officials dismissed the criticism, saying Iran was cooperating fully with the U.N. agency and suggesting that new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano was biased against it and producing misleading reports. Iran says its work is for peaceful purposes.

The Japanese diplomat has taken a tougher approach than his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei. The IAEA said in a February report that Iran could be trying to develop a nuclear-armed missile now, and not just in the past.

"We believe that because of political pressures, marginal and secondary matters are being exaggerated," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

"FALSE INFORMATION"

He said the IAEA’s "writing style" had changed in the past year, implicitly criticising Amano who took office in December.

"Is it not true that Iran’s cooperation with the agency has increased? ... Even in some periods and in order to build trust, we have had further cooperation with the agency which were beyond our commitments," Salehi added.

The IAEA report voiced concern about what it called Iran’s "repeated" objections to its choice of some inspectors, saying this "hampers the inspection process."

Iran barred two inspectors from entering in June, accusing them of wrongly reporting that some nuclear equipment was missing. It also denied access to a senior inspector in 2006 and has objected to other appointments in the past.

"Like any other IAEA member country, it is our right to choose the inspectors (put forward by the agency)," Salehi said.

"Those inspectors who were rejected by Iran had reported false information. The agency reached this conclusion but it dose not want to admit it," he said.

In its latest report, the IAEA said it has "full confidence in the professionalism and impartiality of the inspectors concerned."

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has accused private mine owners of stealing from the people of South Africa.

He was speaking at the Mining for Change conference in Sandton on Tuesday.

Malema said South Africa has 70 percent of the world’s platinum supplies but only a fraction of local residents benefit from this.

Malema used the podium to speak directly to mine owners about the nationalisation of mines.

He said a handful of mine owners are making billions in profits while their workers earn a pittance and risk their lives daily to extract precious minerals from the ground.

Malema added that this is an apartheid style of business and needs to end, saying all South Africans can benefit from the country’s mineral wealth.

He said this would go a long way to alleviate poverty and hunger, and would put government in a better position to live up to its promise of a better life for all.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

With just two days to go to the start of Twenty20 Champions League, the competing teams are hard at work.

The Highveld Lions and the Warriors will be representing South Africa..

The Victorian Bushrangers played a warm-up match against the Mumbai Indians on Tuesday on a Wanderers pitch that looks great for batting.

Teams from Australia, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand and the West Indies will compete against the Lions and the Warriors to see who will be crowned the champions on February 26.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday the ruling party backs government’s policy of no work - no pay for public servants who participated in the strike.

The ANC has welcomed Monday’s announcement that the ongoing industrial action by public service unions will be suspended.

The party said this will give government and unions time to refine the final agreement and for the ANC and the alliance to deal with its relations.

Mantashe said workers should not expect to get paid if they go out on strike.

“I don’t know why no work-no pay is an issue in the public sector. It has not been an issue since the 80s. From where I’m sitting, no work-no pay is non-negotiable. Otherwise it won’t be a strike, it will be a holiday,” he said.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

The Defence Force said on Tuesday army medics would not be pulled out of strike-hit hospitals even though the mass action has been officially suspended.

More than 4,000 soldiers have been deployed at 73 state facilities. It is unclear just how long they will be staying.

Unions decided to suspend the public servants strike for 21 days on Monday to allow negotiations to continue.

However, authorities said those who have not received the news may only return to work by Wednesday.

The SANDF’s Siphiwe Dlamini said, “We are all in full strength in each of those 73 hospitals. We will be there until our assessment, as well as that of the Department of Health, indicates that things are normalising.”

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

The parents of 15-year-old Emma Pringle have been anxiously waiting as their daughter undergoes surgery at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg.

A relative of Emma’s told Talk Radio 702 on Monday that she fractured her spine during a diving accident at her Edenglen home last week - but unfortunately still had not been operated on.

The defence ministry was quick to send a top specialist to assess her condition on Monday and the reasons for the delay have been clarified by the hospital’s management.

Her father has now denied that the postponement was due to the public servants’ strike.

Pringle’s mother Heather said the girl went into theatre around 8:30 on Tuesday morning.

“Emma just said she’s glad it’s going to be over. I’m sure she just wants to get rid of the traction off her head and they said that in all probability the traction might be removed today (Tuesday). They also said we must not be afraid if she still has a breathing tube in her mouth when she comes out,” she said.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

Sally Harrison is developmentally disabled, but on Facebook the 35-year-old woman is just like anyone else.

Victor Tsaran scours the Web at lightning speeds and loves his touch-screen iPhone in seeming contradiction to the fact that he is blind.

Internet gadgets and software are creating a virtual world of equality and opportunity for a large segment of the population once marginalised due to physical or mental impairments.

"It is not about being able to do everything; it is about being able to do what you possibly can given your condition and the technology available," said Tsaran, a project manager at Yahoo! ’accessibility lab.’

For Harrison, Facebook was part of transition that took her from highly-supervised confines of a group home to getting a job and moving into her own apartment.

"She started to blossom after that," said Lisa Giraldi, executive director of Pacific Diversified Services (PDS), an organisation devoted to ’true community inclusion for adults with developmental disabilities.’

"For Sally, it has been fantastic."

Facebook privacy controls were set tightly and Harrison’s family signed on as "friends" and watch over her at the online social networking service.

Harrison told AFP on Friday that she has 83 Facebook friends and tries to check her online profile daily.

"It has helped me a lot," said Harrison, who grappled with low self esteem when she was first taken on as a client by PDS.

"It is important to me because I get to connect with friends I haven’t seen in a long time."

PDS believes in people with disabilities living as independently as possible in communities, and Internet services such as Facebook, email, and online chat help clients stay connected.

"They communicate with each other on Facebook, which is really neat," Giraldi said. "Then, they can make friends with other people’s friends the way the rest of us do... it’s a social equaliser in a way."

Facebook pictures, comments and other posts capturing people with disabilities out enjoying their lives can help dispel stereotypes.

"Social networks shield you from the initial first impression people get of a person with a disability," Tsaran said.

"With social networking, you can create a shield around you so people don’t judge you first by your disability. That is a big one for me."

Teaching clients basic computer skills such as downloading digital pictures or buying songs for iPods at Apple’s online store iTunes has become standard at PDS.

"It really adds to their sense of acceptance in the community," Giraldi said.

"It makes them feel a level of independence that really makes them feel good. Twitter will probably be the next thing."

Tsaran’s team at Yahoo! is devoted to getting engineers and designers to remove barriers that people with disabilities might face when visiting any of the California Internet firm’s websites.

Yahoo! has a second accessibility lab in India.

Approximately 60 million people in the United States have disabilities and their combined annual income tops a trillion dollars, making them valuable customers.

The number of people living with disabilities worldwide is 650 million, according to statistics released recently by the White House.

Technology on display in the lab included Web pages with coding in pictures so descriptions of what might be seen on monitors was spoken aloud by "screen reader" programs used by the blind.

Software let people with varying degrees of paralysis control computers with a tap of a finger, a puff of air, the turn of a head or the clench of a jaw.

Apple has made a priority of building "universal access" into its devices, according to Brightman, who worked for 14 years at the California firm that makes iPods, iPads, iPhones and Macintosh computers.

"The iPhone is the most popular smartphone among the blind population, because accessibility was part of Apple’s view and was built in," special communities senior policy director Alan Brightman said.

"To this day, I watch Victor use an iPhone and think it is amazing."

Accessibility features are also designed into Windows software at the heart of the majority of the world’s computers.

Third-party software makers are also gearing technology for the disabled.

For example, AssistiveWare on Thursday released a Proloquo2go update that lets people with trouble speaking use iPad tablet computers to act as their voices by touching symbols on the screens.

People with disabilities are also benefiting from slick new gadget features such as software that converts spoken words into written text in smartphones running on Google-backed Android software.

"We are really about independence and choices and participation," Brightman said of efforts at the lab and elsewhere in the technology community.

"You ought to be able to do anything anyone else can do; you just have to do it your way."

Suicides and depression cost the Japanese economy almost 32 billion dollars last year on top of their human toll, the government said Tuesday, the first time it released such an estimate.

Welfare payments and medical costs for the depressed, the lost incomes of those in care and those who killed themselves, and other factors came to 2.68 trillion yen (31.8 billion dollars) last year, the government said.

The figure included an estimate of 1.9 trillion yen worth of income that could have been earned by the 26,500 people aged 15 to 69 who killed themselves in 2009, had they chosen to live and work one more year.

Japan, a country of about 127 million people, has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, with 32,845 people killing themselves last year, the 12th year in a row when the number was over 30,000.

The World Health Organisation says the annual suicide rate per 100,000 is 35.8 for men, the more at-risk gender, compared with 10.1 in Britain. Seven countries have a higher rate, including Belarus at 63.3 per 100,000 men.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a former grassroots activist, has pointed to the suicide numbers as proof of what he believes is wrong with the country, with too many people suffering economically and emotionally.

"There are many causes of suicides. Decreasing them would be one way to build ’a society with a minimum level of unhappiness’," he said Tuesday, referring to one of his political slogans.

The National Prosecuting Authority has dropped all charges against Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika.

Wa Afrika was accused of fraud in relation to a document purporting to be a letter of resignation by Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza.

Wa Afrika was arrested several weeks ago at the paper’s offices in Rosebank by a group of police officers and detained for nearly a day without being given access to his lawyers.

The journalist’s arrest on August 4 was a public affair.

The Hawks called it a priority crime and searched his home for incriminating evidence.

Now - just a month later - Wa Afrika said he has been vindicated.

“I got a letter from the National Prosecuting Authority on this morning (Tuesday) to say they are withdrawing all the charges against me,” he said.

Wa Afrika said he was always sure his arrest was an abuse of power and intends to sue the state for his ordeal. He called his arrest a waste of taxpayers’ money and said he never doubted it was anything more than an attempt to intimidate him.

Meanwhile, wa Afrika’s lawyer Eric van den Berg said he hoped the dropping of charges against his client signalled the end of the saga.

However, The Hawks have said they are not giving up and have vowed to intensify their investigation.

Van den Berg said, “Mzilikazi is pleased. I’m pleased and I’m hoping it’s the end of the road. But we’ll obviously have to see what emerges from the further investigations they are going to do,” he said.

Wa Afrika’s legal team is organising a date for him to return to court and have the charges formally withdrawn.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

Gillard’s Labor Party, which was punished by voters in August 21’s inconclusive elections despite a robust economy, secured enough support from three independents and one Green lawmaker to form a one-seat majority in the lower house of parliament.

Her narrow victory means Labor can implement its proposed 30 percent mining tax, a prospect that dented resources stocks and the dollar, as well as pursue a $38 billion telecoms project, which supported shares in phone company Telstra.

Shares in mining heavyweights BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto extended losses on Tuesday after the independents backed Labor, dashing hopes that the conservatives -- who were opposed to the tax -- would take power.

Gillard’s plans to put a price on carbon emissions is also now firmly back on the agenda, given her support from the Greens, who will hold the balance of power in the upper house from mid-2011.

"Labor is prepared to govern, Labor is prepared to deliver stable, effective and secure government for the next three years," Gillard told reporters at parliament after two weeks of secret negotiations on ending the country’s political limbo.

"The Australian people have sent us a message in this election campaign. I’ve heard that message ... and what they are asking us to do is not to become waylaid in partisan bickering, but to build for the future," she said.

To secure support from the last two unaligned independents, Gillard promised to spend billions of dollars on rural areas, partly with funds from the proposed mining tax.

But her razor-thin majority left some doubts over how long she could cling to power.

A single lawmaker in the 150-seat lower house changing sides could bring legislative defeat for her government or, worse, the loss of a no-confidence motion. The government could also fall if it loses one by-election over the next three years.

"Unless there is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Labor Government and the independent MPs we think the arrangement will prove to be more stable than many expect," said Deutsche Bank’s macro strategist David Plank.

"Having said this, Labor only has a slender majority that could be lost after one by-election."

Gillard and conservative leader Tony Abbott had been desperately wooing the undecided independents since the elections and had agreed to reforms demanded by independent MPs, including brakes on executive power over parliament.

MAJOR POLICIES UP FOR REVIEW

Gillard’s new allies have promised to support a stable Labor government and back its budgets, but they have all refused to give blanket guarantees to support Labor policies.

"This parliament is going to be different and no one party has dominance over the executive or the parliament," independent lawmaker Rob Oakeshott told reporters after announcing his decision alongside non-partisan colleague Tony Windsor.

"That is just the reality of the way we are going to do business over the next three years."

Despite its return to power, some of Labor’s major policies could be up for review, including the mining tax and its $38 billion national broadband project.

BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata had already agreed with the government on the 30 percent tax due by 2012.

But the Greens are expected to put pressure on Gillard to toughen the tax, which could sink that deal and reignite a battle in which miners had warned that around A$20 billion in resource investment could be at risk.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave a strong hint on Monday that he would run for president in 2012, a step that would almost certainly give him a second spell as Kremlin chief.

Putin is the dominant partner in a ruling tandem with President Dmitry Medvedev, the younger man he tapped as his favoured successor when a constitutional two-term limit kept the former KGB spy out of the 2008 presidential race.

When asked if running for president in the 2012 election would damage Russia’s political system, Putin cited Franklin Roosevelt who led the United States from 1933 until his death in office in April 1945, before a two-term limit was imposed.

"U.S. President Roosevelt was voted in four times in a row because this did not contradict the American constitution," Putin told Russia experts from the Valdai discussion group at a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The Russian constitution prevented Putin from running in 2008 after serving a second consecutive four-year term as president, but he will be free to run again in 2012. Medvedev changed the constitution in late 2008 to extend future presidential terms to six years.

"Neither I nor President Medvedev will do anything which contradicts current Russian legislation or the country’s fundamental law -- the constitution," Putin said.

"How we will act in 2011 or at the start of 2012 we -- I and President Medvedev -- have said this repeatedly: we will act based on the real situation in the country, on what we have done, on the mood in society," Putin said.

"It is too early to speak about this, though," Putin said. "We must do our jobs. Each of us is doing our job and in my view we are doing it effectively."

"CHOSE TO SHARE POWER"

Both Putin, 57, and Medvedev, 44, have suggested that one of them will run for president in 2012, and that they will agree in advance which one it will be.

No other Russian politician commands the same authority or popular support as Putin, though some diplomats caution that Russia’s political system would be far too dependent on the fate of one man if Putin did return to the Kremlin.

When pressed on the long-term dangers of concentrating power in one person’s hands, Putin said he wanted to create a "balanced" political system.

"We need people to understand that there is nothing wrong with constitutional changes of power. But that will take time," Putin said. "I agree that it is wrong for just one person to hold all the power. That is why I chose to share with Medvedev."

The Cape Town taxi driver arrested for the deaths of 10 children was granted bail of R20,000 at the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday morning.

Jacob Humphreys has been charged with 10 counts of culpable homicide after he allegedly jumped a line of cars at a level crossing in Blackheath. A train crashed into the minibus carrying children to school, killing eight instantly.

The State decided not to oppose Humphreys’ bail application and said he was not a flight risk.

His family refused to speak to the media and covered their faces as they left the building.

A crowd gathered outside the court ahead of Humphreys’ appearance and there was a strong police presence.

A lawyer representing some of the families indicated they would oppose bail should an application be lodged.

Humphreys has been in Pollsmoor Prison for the past seven days after his first court appearance last week.

His bail conditions stipulate that he may not contact witnesses in the case and that he must report to the Kleinvlei Police Station daily between 8am and 8pm.

He is also not allowed to transport passengers for reward. However, he is allowed to hire people to do it as the court realised it was his only means of income.

Melvyn de Bruyn spoke on behalf of the victims’ families and said they accepted the ruling and would allow the law to run its course.

The case has been postponed to 3 December.

(Edited by Lisa Bartlett)