Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade has sacked two key leftist ministers, distancing himself further from the coalition that brought him to power in 2000 after spending decades in opposition in the West African state. State radio announced late on Wednesday that the ministers will be replaced by members of Wade’s ruling Senegal Democratic Party.
A fire broke out on a tanker belonging to the Pakistan navy at a dock in the southern port city of Karachi on Thursday, and relief officials said at least 60 people — most of them sailors — were injured in the blaze. A naval doctor said he fears many others are trapped on the ship.
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Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s legal adviser Julie Mahomed went into the witness box at the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial in the Durban High Court on Thursday. She has testified about a loan agreement that she drew up between Zuma and Shaik in May 1999.
In an experiment designed to test out one of the oldest arguments in the battle of the sexes, a British village is to be temporarily stripped of its womenfolk to see if the remaining men are able to cope. The stunt will be carried out in Harby, a tiny community in northern England, and filmed for a BBC reality television series called <i>The Week the Women Went</i>.
United States-made audio players installed at Beijing’s international airport to scare birds off the runway have failed because of the "language barrier", state media said on Thursday. The machines play sounds of predatory birds, such as hawks, to shoo away birds that pose a danger to aircraft. But the pests were apparently unruffled by the "foreign" squawks.
In a feat that put human sword swallowers to shame, a British dog managed to gulp down a stick only 5cm shorter than its own body, and escape unscathed, a report said on Thursday. Millie, a two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier, swallowed the stick by accident while on a walk with her owner in fields behind his home.
As celebrations go, it will be a muted one. But at 9pm on Thursday evening, anyone who tried and failed to make a fortune in the dotcom boom can be forgiven for sitting back, pouring themselves a glass of millennium bubbly, and thinking about what might have been.
A tiger in a Ukrainian zoo killed a woman trying to clean the animal’s cage by mistake, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday. The incident occurred at the Kiev city zoo after the 23-year-old woman confused enclosure doors, entered the cage of a tiger known to be dangerous, and began collecting trash.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has moved to bury the hatchet with President Thabo Mbeki after Tutu’s criticism of the government last year, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Thursday. Tutu said the row was part of pain of South Africa’s new democracy, the station said.
Heated exchanges marked the South African Human Rights Commission’s announcement on Thursday that boom gates are constitutional. The commission found that the Constitution lets local authorities apply legislation that allows the closures, but it is concerned that there is no adequate monitoring of the closures.