Rafael Nadal beat Tomas Berdych 7-6 6-4 6-2 to reach the Wimbledon semifinals on Friday. The players had trouble adjusting to the wind on Centre Court in the opening games with number two seed Nadal breaking Berdych’s serve in the second and the Czech, seeded seventh, breaking back immediately.
Mitigation, mitigation, mitigation — the need for action to halt climate change will be hammered home at eight Live Earth concerts on seven continents on Saturday. In Johannesburg, that message has dictated the choice of materials in what is being billed as a carbon-neutral concert.
A Spanish woman who pulled the mask off a man as he tried to strangle her was astonished to discover the attacker was her estranged husband, Spanish media reported on Friday. The woman had thought the masked man, who burst into the bakery where she worked in the city of Valencia, was a robber.
Photographs of soldiers’ garments show the contradictions of war, writes Tanya Farber.
Two ”countdown clocks” to the 2010 Soccer World Cup were switched on at Durban International Airport on Friday, a sponsor said. ”The clocks are counting us down to our deadline and bringing us together to unveil our beautiful city to the rest of the world,” said First National Bank’s KwaZulu-Natal chief, Gareth Davies.
Hundreds of President Robert Mugabe’s supporters marched through Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, on Friday in support of an official price freeze introduced to curb the world’s highest inflation rate of over 4Â 500%. The march was planned ahead of a ruling Zanu-PF party meeting to adopt tougher measures against firms defying the freeze.
Global warming is radically changing the face of Mount Everest, the sons of the men who first reached its summit 54 years ago said in an interview published on Friday. The sons of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay told British newspaper the <i>Independent</i> that their fathers would no longer recognise the world’s highest mountain.
Team South Africa leave on Saturday to compete in the All Africa Games in Algiers from July 11 to 23. The All Africa Games contribute to the promotion of the Olympic spirit and stand as a major rendezvous for African athletes. These Games are a milestone in the preparation of the Olympic Games as they are an opportunity for the continent’s athletes to express their potential.
South Africans have every reason to be concerned about the latest crime-trends report, says Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille. ”There can be no doubt, however much government’s office-bearers try to play them down, that the statistics portray a society in which crime is endemic, violent and unrelenting,” she said on Friday on the DA’s website.
Britain said on Friday it was "getting to the bottom" of a militant cell behind last week’s failed attacks, amid tight security ahead of the anniversary of London’s July 2005 suicide bombings. The cautiously upbeat assessment came after Australian police searched two hospitals and questioned five doctors over the London and Glasgow attacks.