Daniel Carter kicked 14 points, including the conversion of Casey Laulala’s solitary try, to give the Canterbury Crusaders a 19-12 win on Saturday over the Wellington Hurricanes in a Super 14 rugby final marred by dense fog. Fog settled so thickly on Jade Stadium for the inaugural final of the expanded Super 14 competition that most of the 35 000 spectators caught only fleeting glimpses of the match.
Not far from the site of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Mark Bingham will be remembered for his grit and his heart, and the game he loved. The Bingham Cup, a rugby tournament open to gay teams, will be held this weekend. It pays tribute to Bingham, who was gay and believed to be one of the passengers who fought hijackers on the United flight.
Fresh fighting erupted in Mogadishu on Saturday after a brief lull, killing at least five people and injuring 11 others in intermittent battles that have blighted the lawless capital since February, witnesses said. Residents reported heavy gunfire in the southern Daynile district, where at least three people were killed and six others injured in the morning violence.
The relatives of those who died in the September 2004 Beslan school siege vowed to continue their campaign for justice on Friday night after the sole surviving hostage-taker was convicted on murder and terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison.
Thirty-one people died in hospital following the explosion of a tanker truck in northern Benin, bringing the total dead to more than sixty, a local hospital official said on Friday. The accident occurred late on Wednesday, when a tanker truck transporting fuel to Mali overturned near the town of Porga, around 500km north of Benin’s commercial capital, Cotonou.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) should explain why it postponed a documentary on President Thabo Mbeki scheduled to be screened last week. This was the view of the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom of Expression Institute, which issued separate statements on Friday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has always been given a warm welcome in the United States, where he is seen as a doggedly loyal, eloquent ally. But on this, possibly his last trip to Washington as prime minister, the affection seemed to be accompanied with sympathy.
Arcelor, the pan-European steel group, on Friday torpedoed Mittal’s latest hostile takeover bid by buying Russia’s Severstal in an agreed €13-billion deal designed to create an ”unrivalled global champion” out of reach of its Indian-owned predator.
United States-based company LifeGem has developed a way to turn the remains of your loved one into a diamond in about 24 weeks. It does this by extracting carbon from the ashes of the body, subjecting it to intense heat to create graphite and then placing it in a special diamond press which replicates the awesome forces deep within the Earth.
The South African economy has shown resilience by withstanding a 144c petrol price increase over the past two years, but production costs threaten a benign outlook, figures released recentl show. Statistics South Africa reported that inflation excluding mortgage rates rose 3,7% in April. This was slightly below forecast.