China’s ambitious plan to bear an Olympic flame to the top of the world’s highest mountain paid off yesterday as the torch reached the summit of Everest. The feat — three months to the day before the opening ceremony in Beijing — has been cast as the highlight of the relay, dogged by protests as it travelled around the world.
Gold Fields, the world’s number four gold producer, posted a 67% rise in quarterly headline earnings on the back of soaring prices for the metal, but production fell on South Africa’s power crunch. Gold Fields said on Friday its adjusted headline earnings per share for the third quarter to the end of March rose to 155 cents from 93 cents in the second quarter.
Hezbollah-led opposition fighters seized control of pro-government strongholds in Beirut on Friday as gun battles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, edging the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war. Gunfire and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed across west Beirut.
World oil prices hit a fresh record high point close to $125 per barrel on Friday, extending this week’s record run after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries insisted the market was well-supplied and driven by speculators. New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, spiked to an historic $124,73 per barrel.
Josef Fritzl, the man who incarcerated his daughter beneath his home for 24 years, has issued a frank confession from his cell, in which he has said he was driven by an addiction which ”got out of control”. Fritzl (73) said: ”I knew that what I was doing was not right, that I must be mad for doing such a thing.”
Irvine Robbins, who delighted ice cream afficionados by conjuring up ever more inventive flavours as co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins empire, has died aged 90. Robbins, who started the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream chain with late brother-in-law Burt Baskin in 1945, died on May 5 at the Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California.
The city of Tshwane will bestow a freedom of the city award on former president Nelson Mandela on May 13. Tshwane Mayor Gwen Ramokgopa said it would kick-off a year-long programme to celebrate Mandela’s life and legacy. The ceremony will take place at the Tshwane City Hall and simultaneously at a public event on Church Square.
Barack Obama on Thursday gave the clearest hint yet that he may consider Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential running mate in the November election for the White House. With the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination close to finished as a contest, Obama began looking beyond his battles with Clinton to the one with the Republican John McCain.
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says restaurants should be fined if they serve out-of-season fruit and vegetables. ”I don’t want to see asparagus in the middle of December. I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home-grown,” he said.
All Blacks hooker Andrew Hore scored his fifth try of the season and the Wellington Hurricanes boosted their semifinal chances in the Super 14 with a 21-10 win on Friday over the Western Force. Wellington entered the penultimate regular-season round in third place on the championship table, behind the Canterbury Crusaders and New South Wales Waratahs.