A total of 28 people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed by a series of forest fires that have swept through parts of South Africa and Swaziland since the end of last month, officials said on Thursday. ”Twenty-six deaths have been reported thus far” in South Africa alone, said a statement issued after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The hourly chimes of Big Ben are to fall silent for a month while maintenance work is carried out on one of London’s most famous landmarks, officials said on Wednesday. Work will include replacing the strike train, which controls the hourly bell and the going train, which operates the clock.
Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti has been admitted to hospital in northern Italy, a hospital spokesperson said on Thursday. The spokesperson said Pavarotti had been taken to the Policlinico of Modena hospital on Tuesday for medical checks and has been there since.
Thousands of women gathered in Kimberley on Thursday for national Women’s Day celebrations, some bussed in from as far as Pampierstad. Groups of singing women had been arriving at Galeshewe Stadium throughout the morning. Many were dressed in the green and black colours of the African National Congress Women’s League.
New York commuters beat a wary path to work on Thursday, the day after a freak storm plunged the city into chaos, felling trees, flooding roads and jamming the city’s vast underground train network. Streets were blocked by fallen trees, wrecked cars and rubble from damaged homes.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is nearing a deal with the opposition to end a political crisis in his country after South Africa tried to broker an agreement, a document obtained by Reuters on Wednesday indicated. A confidential report due to be presented to leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community says ”progress” has been made in talks.
Tens of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims made their way on foot to a shrine in the north of Baghdad on Thursday, hoping for safety at an annual ritual marred by violence in the past two years. Two years ago, nearly 1Â 000 pilgrims were killed in a stampede on a bridge near the shrine, sparked by rumours of a suicide bomber.
Pakistan’s beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf has no plans to impose emergency rule, contrary to widespread reports that he was about to announce the authoritarian measure, the president of the ruling party said on Thursday. ”There is no possibility of an emergency,” Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of Pakistan Muslim League, said.
Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni said on Wednesday evening that South Africa is facing a critical shortage of specialist skills in a number of fields, most especially in the important financial and economic field. However, he added it is pleasing to see some institutions were getting involved to help develop the skills base.
Virgin America got an early taste of the challenges facing the United States aviation industry on Thursday as a thunderstorm wreaked havoc at New York’s congested airports, delaying the carrier’s inaugural flight. The new domestic carrier’s first service was due to take off from Kennedy airport at 9.59am — but flight VX1 to San Francisco finally lifted off shortly before 11am.