A South African court on Thursday cleared sprinter Oscar Pistorius for international travel, easing stringent bail conditions imposed on him for killing his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. "I find that the magistrate's decision not to grant the appellant his passport to travel abroad was wrong," Judge Bert Bam told the High Court in Pretoria. The 26-year-old's passport must be handed to his attorney and the "applicant be allowed to use his passport outside South Africa", said Bam.

Lawyers for Oscar Pistorius told a South African court on Thursday that the Paralympic hero, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend, was not a flight risk as they contested stringent bail conditions to enable him to travel abroad. Pistorius, 26, is challenging a raft of conditions including the confiscation of his passport that he says are unfair and unwarranted. "Why would this athlete go to a country without extradition and go and hide?" lawyer Barry Roux asked the High Court in Pretoria, saying the bail terms were tantamount to "house arrest".

Lawyers for South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius were on Thursday to contest the stringent bail terms imposed on him after killing his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Pistorius, 26, will challenge a raft of conditions, including strict travel restrictions, which he argues are unfair and unwarranted. The state is set to oppose the challenge. The athlete is not expected to appear at the hearing in North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

Forty-three South African rugby captains, past and present, met Wednesday in a historic gathering that brought together legends of the game across race and gender. From 1995 World Cup skipper Francois Pienaar to current women's captain Mandisa Williams, the players marked the countdown to the launch of a new Springbok museum in September. The museum will trace the game from the 1860s in the rugby-obsessed nation where the sport was separated during apartheid along race lines and only united in 1992.