One year into the construction of railways of South Africa’s first partly underground express train, the focus is on the completion of routes that are crucial for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Transport Minister Jeff Radebe visited the sites of the Johannesburg and Rosebank rail tracks and stations on Wednesday.
It may never be known if Princess Diana was pregnant when she died with her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, in a high-speed Paris car crash, the inquest into their deaths was told on Wednesday. Dodi’s father, Harrods luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed, says the couple were killed in 1997 by Britain’s security services on the orders of Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Diana’s former father-in-law.
Yahoo! has retooled its online search engine to make it more helpful and engaging, joining an industrywide wave of improvements that so far haven’t dented Google’s dominance. It regards the upgrade announced on Tuesday as the most significant change to its search engine since it reclaimed control of the underlying technology.
South African spinner Paul Harris took a career-best 5-73 against Pakistan as the visitors extended their lead on the third day of the first Test in Karachi on Wednesday. The 28-year-old left-armer took full advantage of a spin-friendly pitch to help dismiss the home team for 291.
A mystery over the unexplained appearance of a string of gargoyle-style stone faces in northern England was solved on Tuesday, when the artist behind them was named. The sculptures, which all have a carved symbol that apparently spells ”paradox” and a riddle, have been left outside homes and businesses.
With a series of small beeps from a spiky globe 50 years ago, the world shrank and humanity’s view of Earth and the cosmos expanded. Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was launched by the Soviets and circled the globe on October 4 1957. The Space Age was born. And what followed were changes to everyday life that people now take for granted.
South African Broadcasting Corporation board deputy chairperson Christine Qunta has demanded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) stop publishing defamatory material about her. Qunta’s legal representatives sent a letter in this regard to the TAC on Wednesday, her lawyer, Athol Gordon, said.
In the first United States trial to challenge fines levied by music companies for sharing copyrighted music online, a single mother from Minnesota has gone to court to prove she did nothing wrong. Jammie Thomas is the first among more than 26 000 people sued by the world’s most powerful recording companies.
Nintendo’s ”Wiimote” is getting a cushion cover. The Japanese game maker’s Wii machine has become a global hit among players young and old alike. To help prevent accidents and soften possible blows, Nintendo is shipping for free rubbery silicone covers for the handheld devices.
In spite of its global popularity, internet telephony (voice-over-internet protocol, or VoIP), which is almost free for users, has not become a gold mine for its pioneers such as Skype and Vonage. Popular online auction firm eBay, which bought Skype two years ago for ,6-billion, affirmed that message in a costly way on Monday.