Hailed as a hero only a month ago, John Connolly now confronts the downside of coaching Australia. Connolly takes the Wallabies into Saturday’s Tri Nations rugby Test at Suncorp Stadium with many questioning his game plan, tactics and selections. The long-serving Queensland coach was seen to have turned around Australia’s fortunes last month.
Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio will be relegated to the Italian second division, according to a report in the Gazetta dello Sport newspaper on Friday. Italy’s premier sports newspaper claimed it was revealing the long-anticipated ruling in Italy’s match-fixing scandal, due to be given on Friday evening.
Zimbabwe has missed its target to raise wheat output to a record 500 000 tons after farmers reduced plantings, raising fears of bread shortages, the official Herald newspaper reported on Friday. Farmers planted about 58 000ha of wheat, considerably lower than the 110 000ha targeted by the government in a bid to boost food security, the newspaper said.
A North West woman said armed men attacked and tortured her family, pouring boiling water on her husband, slashing open his forehead, then strangling him with a shoelace. The family, from Swartruggens near Rustenburg, were attacked on Wednesday night, media reports said on Friday.
Meerkats actively teach their young how to catch and eat their prey, British researchers said in a study that is one of the first to prove that animals show such complex behaviour. While animals are known to learn from one another by watching, the team at Britain’s University of Cambridge said they had demonstrated that the animals actually teach, as defined by clear principles.
Do not fret. Everything will be in place by 2010. Everything. The stadiums will be in place. The trains and taxis will be in place. Naturally it is possible that the stadiums will be in place somewhere else, a decimal on the GPS display overlooked, to provide concrete amphitheatres in which demagogue dassies harangue termites and sun-bleached Pick ‘n Pay packets.
Giant petrochemicals firm Sasol said it was confident that workers who planned to strike at the company would accept a new pay offer given to trade unions on Thursday. On top of its 6,5% salary increase, Sasol also offered a further 1,5% hike on employees’ housing subsidies.
Legendary rugby winger Jonah Lomu will renew his bid to regain his All Black place on Saturday when he takes the field in an Auckland club match. Since receiving a kidney transplant in 2004, 31-year-old Lomu has been trying to resurrect his glory days but a stint with Welsh side Cardiff was cut short in April by an ankle injury.
The top World Cup official in Berlin has died four days after shooting himself in the head just hours after the final, the German press reported on Friday. The <i>Berliner Morgenpost</i> quoted a spokesperson of the Charite hospital as saying Juergen Kiessling (65) passed away on Thursday.
”Always low prices” is the endlessly repeated slogan of Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer. But now, if the price is low enough — under — you might get away without paying at all. The chain has decided to stop seeking prosecution of shoplifters stealing goods worth less than , ending the ”zero tolerance” policy inaugurated by the firm’s strictly moral founder, Sam Walton.