Shivnarine Chanderpaul on Wednesday announced his resignation with immediate effect as captain of the West Indies cricket team. The 31-year-old, who took over from Brian Lara in March 2005, informed the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) of his decision in a letter.
Italy nursed a post-election hangover on Wednesday, distressed that centre-left leader Romano Prodi failed to pull off a more emphatic victory and irritated by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s refusal to go quietly. Giancarlo Traverso, an activist for the centre-left Union coalition, said that their camp was ”convinced” that Prodi would be declared the winner in the end.
Skipper Ricky Ponting and opener Matthew Hayden took Australia closer to victory on Wednesday after their early scare against bottom-ranked Bangladesh in the first Test. Ponting was on 72 at stumps on the fourth day with first-innings centurion Adam Gilchrist on six as Australia reached 212-4, 95 short of a win.
In a bizarre twist to the treason trial of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, the defence on Wednesday accused the government of coaching the lead prosecution witness with a hidden radio set. Defence lawyer Caleb Alaka stunned a packed courtroom by claiming that the testimony of the witness, Jennifer Aryemo, was being directed by unidentified government agents through an earpiece concealed in an elaborate disguise.
England’s stand-in captain Andrew Strauss limped his way to 74 as the tourists finally tasted victory in the sixth one-day match against India on Wednesday. The Middlesex opener, leading England for the first time in place of the rested Andrew Flintoff, retired hurt with leg cramps in the 31st over before the tourists surpassed India’s modest 223 with 44 deliveries to spare.
Peter Robinson, who was arguably South Africa’s leading cricket writer and was certainly the most entertaining, died in Johannesburg late on Tuesday night. Robinson, who wrote a popular cricket column in the Mail & Guardian, was diagnosed with cancer of the lung in October last year and underwent surgery. He made a rapid recovery and for months it appeared he had won the battle.
International community representatives on the board of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria have voiced concerns over grants.
Hollywood glamour pair Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie tried to slip into a vacation resort last week in a sleepy part of Namibia using the names of the characters they played in a film of Mr and Mrs Smith. The couple has declined to confirm reports of their stay at game lodges between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund in the south-western African state, or the purpose of their visit that follows on a trip to Paris.
Three of South Africa’s five border posts with Swaziland were completely blocked to traffic in organised protests against the kingdom’s leadership, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) said on Wednesday. Members of the SSN, the Congress of SA Trade Unions the South African Communist Party and the Young Communist League were gathering at South Africa’s border posts with the kingdom to protest the curtailing of political freedoms.
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Yet another theologian testified at Jacob Zuma’s rape trial on Wednesday, but unlike others who told the court of false rape accusations by Zuma’s accuser, pastor Modianyeo Modise’s testimony took a different turn. He testified it ”was love at first sight” when the two met at the Wilberforce Theological College in Vereeniging.