Foreign medics freed from a Libyan jail were tortured into confessing they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, a son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi said in remarks broadcast on Thursday. The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed on July 24 after a deal between Tripoli and the European Union.
Former world champion Mika Hakkinen says the competition provided by Lewis Hamilton has current world champion Fernando Alonso rattled. The pair are teammates at McLaren-Mercedes but Spaniard Alonso is said to be not speaking to Hamilton after a series of incidents between the pair in the Briton’s rookie season.
Nearly 100 people have drowned in floods in Sudan, where rivers have burst their banks, inundating villages and farm lands, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Thursday. The toll over the past month was reported by the Sudanese Red Crescent, which has been leading the humanitarian response to the flooding.
President Thabo Mbeki does not have to give reasons for why he dismissed deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the Presidency said on Thursday. A decision by Mbeki had been taken and it had been implemented, said presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga. ”The president doesn’t have to provide reasons.”
It has pristine beaches, lush highlands and an exotic cultural mix — and lies just a few hours’ flight east of the Indonesian resort island of Bali. But currently almost the only overseas visitors to East Timor are foreign troops, journalists and aid workers after Asia’s youngest nation descended into turmoil last year.
Her blonde hair dripping with salt water, top Austrian kitesurfer Gabi Steidl cuts through the translucent, emerald green waves of the Indian Ocean. Kitesurfing — a hi-tech hybrid of surfing and kite-flying — is fast winning converts: riders harnessed to kites who stand on boards and skim, surf or even leap, often hanging in the air for several seconds.
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.
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.