Dane Michael Rasmussen took an important step towards overall victory in the Tour de France with an easy win on the 16th stage, a 218,5km ride from Orthez in the Pyrenees on Wednesday. The Rabobank rider beat Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer of the United States by 26 seconds to retain the leader’s yellow jersey.
The consistently high death toll of workers in South Africa’s mines is of great concern, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on a visit to AngloGold Ashanti’s Moab Khotsong mine near Orkney on Wednesday. The two deaths there over the weekend brought to four the toll at the mine, said chief inspector of mines Thabo Gazi.
The Citizen portrayed Robert McBride as a criminal, his lawyer said during McBride’s R3,6-million defamation suit against the newspaper on Wednesday. Advocate Daniel Berger said acting editor Martin Williams had ignored the fact that McBride was granted amnesty, thus clearing his criminal record of acts that were politically motivated.
The families of hundreds of Libyan children with HIV condemned Bulgaria’s ”recklessness” on Wednesday for its pardoning of six medical workers accused of infecting the children and called on Tripoli to cut ties with Sofia. In a statement, an association of the families demanded the medics be re-arrested by Interpol.
A senior Japanese power-company official defended on Wednesday the speed with which the public was notified about damage at a quake-hit nuclear plant that resulted in a radioactive water leak. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has come under fire for being slow to inform the public about damage at the plant.
A plan to reduce the effects of commercial fishing fleets within Southern Africa’s so-called Benguela-current large marine ecosystem was released in Cape Town on Wednesday. Experts have hailed it as a clear and practical way of implementing an ”ecosystem approach to fisheries” policy in the region.
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has warned taxpayers against applying for deductions for private household security as a form of protesting against crime. Honest, non-suspecting taxpayers could, as a result, end up committing a crime themselves, Sars warned in a statement on Wednesday.
The violence that has marred recent service-delivery protests cannot be justified, the South African Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday. While the commission recognises the right of any person to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions, ”inherent in this right is the respect for the rule of law”, the commission said in a statement.
The leaders of Somalia’s national reconciliation conference on Wednesday opened up the talks to Islamists, members of a rival peace meeting in Asmara and even insurgents targeting the conference venue in Mogadishu. By allowing the dissident groups in, conference organisers appeared to be trying to give the meeting wider inclusiveness urged by international donors.
Norwegian researchers are calling for bold, non-hairy humans to bare their arms and be stung by jellyfish — in the name of science. Testing a new sunscreen, aimed at protecting against jellyfish stings, the University of Oslo said it wants volunteers to be burned by jellyfish tentacles on both arms.