Leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities agreed on Friday to relaunch reunification talks and to open a barricaded street in Nicosia that symbolises the island’s division. It was the first meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat since Christofias was elected to the Cypriot presidency last month.
The adverse publicity surrounding the selection of the Proteas is a matter of concern to all cricket lovers, Cricket South Africa chief executive Gerald Majola said on Friday. Speaking at OR Tambo Airport ahead of the Proteas’ departure for a three-Test tour of India, Majola said it was disappointing that cricket was hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Church leader Wycliffe Masibo describes seeing an elderly member of his flock whipped to death during a Kenyan army search for militiamen in his remote mountain village. Having made all the men lie on the floor, soldiers kicked and hit them, demanding they tell them where guns were kept.
A pair of astronauts ended a spacewalk late on Thursday in which they tested a repair procedure for the heat shields on the space-shuttle fleet — a technique Nasa hopes it never needs to use. During the over six-hour outing the pair also replaced a faulty circuit breaker and removed a thermal sock from the station’s new Canadian-built handyman robot.
New Zealand’s Canterbury Crusaders piled on 28 unanswered points in the last 27 minutes to crush Australia’s New South Wales Waratahs 34-7 in a Super 14 match at Christchurch on Friday. The Waratahs had overturned a 6-0 halftime deficit to snatch a 7-6 lead when number eight Wycliff Palu crashed over early in the second term.
Former champion Nigel Mansell has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the Formula One driver to beat while rejecting comparisons between the 23-year-old Briton and golfer Tiger Woods. ”Lewis is the man to beat,” said Mansell, who took his title after winning the 1992 season-opener in South Africa.
A fresh batch of African Union (AU) troops arrived on the Comoros island of Moheli on Friday, joining Comoran forces massed for a military offensive to retake the rebel island of Anjouan. The Indian Ocean archipelago — between Madagascar and Mozambique — did not recognise the re-election of Anjouan leader Colonel Mohamed Bacar in June 2007.
While power supply was expected to remain steady over the long weekend, there was still a risk of load-shedding, Eskom said on Friday. Spokesperson Erica Johnson said in a statement: ”We don’t expect any load-shedding over the long weekend as demand patterns are historically lower during holidays.”
The giants enter the African club battleground this weekend as second round combat begins in the two major competitions. Both title holders hail from Tunisia and enjoy home advantage with Etoile Sahel playing AS Douanes of Senegal in the African Champions League while CS Sfaxien meet JSM Bejaia of Algeria in the African Confederation Cup.
Oil prices extended a week-long slide on Thursday, briefly tumbling below a barrel for the first time in two weeks amid growing concerns an economic slowdown in top consumer the United States would cut global energy demand. US crude settled down 70 cents to ,84 a barrel after falling as low as ,65 earlier in the session