Up to 20 people, including children, were killed in northern China when explosives stored in the home of a mine operator blew up near a school, local officials and state media said on Thursday. Local press reports said at least 20 children died and the Beixinzhuang elementary school was badly damaged in the Wednesday-afternoon blast.
A traditional healer who told a young patient he had to have sex with her for his medicine to work has been arrested for rape, Free State police said on Thursday. Police spokesperson Sergeant Thandi Mbambo said the matter was reported to police on Wednesday after the 14-year-old girl discovered she was three months pregnant.
A public-relations specialist who worked for Michael Jackson for six days told jurors the pop singer’s team planned a smear campaign against the mother of his young accuser. Ann Marie Kite testified on Wednesday that his associates hoped to portray the accuser’s mother as a ”crack whore”.
The Gauteng government plans to introduce a provincial tax to increase its revenues, provincial finance minister Paul Mashatile said on Thursday. The nature and rate of the tax were not made clear. He said the additional revenue raised will be used for socio-economic development, reducing poverty and unemployment.
The Sudanese government voiced its displeasure on Wednesday at the latest United States proposition for sanctions over Khartoum’s handling of the crisis in Darfur. A Sudanese official said the US State Department Adviser for Sudan, Charles Snyder, had promised that the draft resolution proposing sanctions would be ”mitigated”.
A Swiss musician sees colours when she hears music, and experiences tastes ranging from sour and bitter to low-fat cream and mown grass, astounded scientists say. Zurich University neuropsychologists were so intrigued by the case of ES — whose full name has been withheld — that they recruited her for a year-long inquiry.
The Cook Islands’ main island of Rarotonga battened down on Wednesday as Cyclone Percy continued to batter the tiny South Pacific nation. The cyclone, which dropped to category four from the maximum five during the day, passed to the west of the island of Palmerston early on Wednesday.
The Burmese python is able to boost the size of its heart chambers by half in order to help it digest a big meal, thanks to a remarkable protein that expands cardiac muscle, researchers say. The reptile’s "extraordinarily rapid" increase in heart size enables it to cope with a 40-fold rise in metabolic rate during digestion.
A Norwegian couple survived unscathed when a 40-tonne tank taking part in an international military exercise in central Norway ran over and crushed their car, military sources said on Thursday. "The accident is being investigated by military police. It is too early to say how this could have happened," a military spokesperson said.
About 80% of Gauteng’s budget of R33,5-billion is earmarked for social services, the province’s finance minister, Paul Mashatile, said on Thursday. The budget will try to address discrepancies in Gauteng, which shows impressive economic growth while battling with high levels of poverty and unemployment and a lack of infrastructure.