Spaniard Oscar Freire of the Rabobank team dominated some of the world’s fastest sprinters to win the ninth stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday. After 169,5km of racing from Bordeaux, Serguei Gonchar of the T-Mobile team retained the race leader’s yellow jersey ahead of the first climbing stage of the race, a 190,5km ride from Cambo-Les-Bains to Pau.
At least 135 people were killed in seven explosions on the railway network in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, during the evening rush hour on Tuesday, police said. CNN said hundreds were injured, and reported that the country, including all airports, was put on high alert. Television footage showed railway carriages split in half by the explosions.
Syd Barrett, the troubled genius who co-founded Pink Floyd but spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, a spokesperson for the band said on Tuesday. He was 60. The spokesperson — who declined to give her name until the band made an official announcement — said Barrett died several days ago.
No school buses will be running when pupils return to their classes on Monday unless the Gauteng education department comes up with R14-million allegedly owed to operators. The department is not honouring its contractual agreement, South African Bus Operators’ Association executive manager Eric Cornelius said.
India’s prime minister on Tuesday vowed to "defeat the evil designs of terrorists" after blasts killed scores in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai, and eight others in revolt-hit Kashmir. Manmohan Singh called for calm in Mumbai and Srinagar after an emergency meeting at his official residence with Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
Pakistani officials on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of a terror attack in an airliner crash that killed 45 people, as they sent the plane’s ”black box” for analysis. The ageing Pakistani International Airlines Fokker F27 plummeted to the ground and burst into flames shortly after take-off from the central city of Multan on Monday.
New York authorities are investigating whether a doctor who survived the explosion of a four-storey home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Monday might have caused the blast rather than sell the home as part of a divorce judgement in his ex-wife’s favour.
At least six explosions rocked the railway network in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, during the evening rush hour on Tuesday, officials from the state-run railway told the Press Trust of India. Officials said at least 40 people died in the blasts and hundreds were injured, and the country has been put on high alert.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ari Larijani warned on Tuesday that a ”long road” remains ahead before Tehran’s atomic stand-off with the West can be solved, after his latest talks with European officials. ”We had very wide-ranging discussions. We were following up on the Tehran negotiations,” he said after talks with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The cost of connectivity is the biggest factor inhibiting more access to computers, specifically in developing continents such as Africa, Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates said in Cape Town on Tuesday. ”That cost is much higher in places where there are less people connected,” Gates told an audience attending the final day of the Government Leaders Forum-Africa conference.