American Lance Armstrong admitted he was surprised to see who exactly are his remaining rivals in the Tour de France after taking another step towards winning a record sixth yellow jersey. The 32-year-old US Postal rider claimed his 17th stage victory overall on Saturday after beating Italy’s Ivan Basso to the finish.
After a series of disappointing home-ground performances in the Super 12 — and a dodgy Absa Currie Cup start two weeks ago — the Sharks returned to their Durban base with purposeful intent on Saturday to take the maximum five log points off the Golden Lions in fashioning an important 38-25 Currie Cup rugby victory.
Armies of firefighters were on Friday battling fast-spreading wildfires across the western United States, including one menacing more than 1 000 homes in Nevada’s state capital, officials said. The towering flames in the Carson City blaze, the worst in history of the city of 50 000 people, have already charred 14 homes.
Thousands of tourists flock to northern Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park every year to watch pink flamingoes, but recent mass deaths of the birds have brought a new tragedy. ”The death of more than 10 000 flamingoes in Lake Manyara is a real tragedy,” Tanzania National Parks director general Gerald Bigurube said.
At least four people were killed and three wounded, including a small girl, in a bomb attack on Saturday targeting Iraqi Justice Minister Malek Dohan al-Hassan, who escaped unhurt, hospital officials said. The cause of the blast was attributed to a suicide car bomber by some people. Others said it was a powerful roadside device.
Parents cremated the already charred bodies of their children on Saturday after a devastating fire that swept through a primary school in rural India, killing at least 90 children. Some officials said teachers fled the burning thatched-roof building without helping their students escape.
Birthday tributes have started pouring in for former president Nelson Mandela who turns 86 on Sunday.
Pensioners buy a single egg when they shop. School numbers are falling because parents can’t afford to feed their children, let alone educate them. One desperate man who couldn’t make ends meet chose to pay with his life. Runaway prices are changing, perhaps for generations, the way people live and die in Zimbabwe.
South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, worst-hit by Aids in the country, faces a lack of burial space due the growing number of deaths from the disease, officials warned at a two-day conference that ended on Friday. The city of Durban is struggling to keep up: only two out of 22 cemeteries have vacant plots left.
Secret work on United States nuclear weapons at one of the top US laboratories has been halted and a government inquiry launched after two computer disks went missing, the third such security breach in eight months. The disappearance of the disks from the Los Alamos base was blamed on sloppiness among laboratory scientists.