A methane explosion killed 38 people at a Siberian coal mine on Thursday, just weeks after 110 miners died in a blast at a neighbouring mine operated by the same company. Rescue workers halted work as no more miners were thought to be missing at the Yubileynaya pit in the Kemerovo region of western Siberia, emergency officials said.
Recruits at Zimbabwe’s notorious youth camps live in substandard barracks, get very little food and may be at risk of sexual abuse, a new report said on Thursday. Trainees at the National Youth Service camps, set up to supposedly instil patriotism in young Zimbabweans, frequently go to bed hungry, according to a parliamentary report.
Twelve footprints found in the bed of an ancient lake in northern Spain have thrown up the first compelling evidence that some land dinosaurs could swim, researchers reported on Thursday. The 15m-long track in sandstone ”strongly suggests a floating animal clawing the sediment” as it swam against a current, they say.
Severe shortages of health staff in four Southern African countries is the main barrier to expanding HIV/Aids treatment, according to a Medecins sans Frontières report released on Thursday. The report, Help Wanted indicates that more than one million people need Aids treatment but are not getting it.
George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and other members of the all-star caper Ocean’s Thirteen made off with millions at Cannes ahead of the movie’s red-carpet premiere on Thursday. The A-list cast raised ,2-million at an exclusive charity bash for Sudanese uprooted by the savage conflict in Darfur.
A total of 7 000 taxi owners across the country have applied for the small-business tax amnesty ahead of the cut-off date of May 31, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) said in a statement on Thursday. A large number of them only responded from the beginning of this week and Sars is calling on to all others to do the same, spokesperson Thumida Maistry said.
Can Ajax do it again? That is the question leading up to Saturday’s Absa Cup soccer final between Mamelodi Sundowns and Ajax Cape Town in Durban. It will be the fourth time the two sides meet this season, and in the three previous encounters Ajax got the better of the Premier Soccer League champions.
”We need to meet them head on in every area,” England captain Jason Robinson said ahead of the first Test against South Africa in Bloemfontein on Saturday. Robinson acknowledged England could be seen as underdogs, but said that would have been the case even if more of the regular team had been in South Africa.
The Department of Correctional Services confirmed on Thursday that Annanias Mathe’s father (80) was taken in for questioning after he allegedly tried to smuggle an illegal substance into C-Max Prison. ”The officials spotted through a scanner a bottle with a black substance inside a loaf of bread carried by the 80-year-old man,” a spokesperson said.
Failed land-reform projects threaten food security in South Africa, warns a study by the FW de Klerk Foundation, launched in Cape Town on Thursday. The document — titled Land Reform: A Contextual Analysis — says the country’s food security is already under pressure.