The Hurricanes and the Sharks battled to a 13-all draw in a controversial Super 14 rugby match played in atrocious conditions in Wellington on Saturday. Australian referee Paul Marks handed out a red card, a yellow card and awarded a penalty try, before ending the game without reacting to Hurricanes centre Conrad Smith being taken out of play in a potentially try-scoring move.
”Martyrdom” videos glorying in alleged planned bomb attacks on aircraft leaving from Heathrow were shown in court on Friday in the trial of eight alleged members of a British terror cell. The jury at Woolwich Crown Court also heard transcripts of videos in which the men talked of body parts ”decorating the streets”.
Zimbabwe’s opposition was pushing for the High Court to consider an urgent petition on Saturday demanding the immediate release of results from last weekend’s presidential election, its lawyer said. ”We are doing everything in our powers to have it heard today but we are not expecting anything before lunchtime,” Alec Muchadehama said.
fireman was found guilty of arson and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years behind bars on Friday after being convicted of starting 20 blazes across northern Switzerland. The 31-year-old farmer even set his own property alight, with total damage from his spree during 2002/04 running to several million Swiss francs (one Swiss franc equals $1).
Two 702 Eyewitness News journalists were expelled from Zimbabwe after they tried to enter the country at the Beit Bridge border post on Friday afternoon, the station said. Journalists Jean Jacques Cornish and Sheldon Morais were detained and questioned but were released after more than three-and-a-half hours.
Lions coach Eugene Eloff has had enough of his side’s near-wins in the Super 14, in which they have only one win and a draw from seven outings. ”I’m fed up with saying that this was another match we should have won,” Eloff said after Friday’s defeat to the Highlanders, who were bottom of the log before their 29-20 win over the Lions.
Once-unstoppable Roger Federer finds himself without a title entering the clay-court portion of the ATP season, a situation that has the world number one looking for reasons why and finding few answers. The Swiss superstar was upset by Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson Open on Thursday.
Santos’ fine form continued on Friday night when they thrashed Black Leopards 4-0 at the Athlone Stadium. The Limpopo side started the game on a positive note, but while they looked good in the build ups to attacks, they failed to trouble Santos keeper Wayne Roberts with any noteworthy efforts.
Sri Lanka clawed their way back into the second Test on Friday, snapping up six West Indies wickets in the final session to leave the match finely balanced. The home team were 268-7 at the close on the second day, having gone into tea on 133-1 in reply to Sri Lanka’s 278 all out.
South Africa closed in on a resounding victory in the second Test against India on Saturday, the tourists grabbing three wickets before lunch on the third day to maintain their stranglehold on the match. Openers Virender Sehwag and Wasim Jaffer, and batting mainstay Rahul Dravid were all undone by the South Africa pace attack.