All-conquering in the Premier Soccer League this season, the journey to the land of the pyramids and the Nile proved a bridge too far for Mamelodi Sundowns as they were comprehensively beaten 2-0 by Al-Ahly in a second-leg African Champions League encounter at Cairo’s National Stadium on Friday night.
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West Indies captain Brian Lara will play the last game of an illustrious international career on Saturday when his side take on England in the final World Cup Super Eights clash. Lara, who holds the record for the top Test score (400 not out) and highest first-class knock (501 not out), retires after the match and will be given a huge reception at the Kensington Oval.
On a stage facing a sea of tricolour flags stood a small figure in a pinstriped suit hailed as the greatest orator in France. Slicing the air with both hands and jabbing his finger, he waved his arms like an orchestra conductor, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as he promised a France that would no longer hate itself.
Close allies of British Prime Minister Tony Blair are set to be charged in the "cash-for-honours" row that has tainted his final year in office, newspapers said on Saturday. Police investigating the allegations on Friday handed a 216-page file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will now decide whether anyone should face criminal proceedings in the case.
A United Nations report released on Friday pressed for world support for African peacekeepers in Somalia but warned that pursuing military solutions in Mogadishu was likely to be ”counter-productive”. ”The international community should urgently support the African Union with all means at its disposal,” the report by UN chief Ban Ki-moon said.
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday urged South Africans to reflect on fulfilling their obligation to advance South Africa’s national agenda as outlined in the Constitution. ”Some among our compatriots have as yet not become fully aware of the fact that our country shares an important national agenda … That national agenda is spelt out in our Constitution,” he said.
As America held a day of mourning for victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, a fresh gun tragedy was played out on Friday in Texas in which a gunman killed a hostage at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre before killing himself. Described as being in his 50s, the man barricaded himself into the second floor of a Nasa office block in Houston, taking two hostages.
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Matthew Hayden’s third century of the tournament helped champions Australia extend their unbeaten run at the World Cup to 27 matches with a 215-run Super Eights thrashing of fellow semifinalists New Zealand at Grenada’s National Stadium on Friday. Hayden’s 103 off 100 balls was the centrepiece of Australia’s 348-6.
I refer to the letter by David Rubenstein ("Genocide the right word", April 5), executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition, on how to name and end the horrific and deplorable violence against civilians in Darfur. In my piece ("Darfur: the politics of naming", March 16), I contrasted two naming strategies, one by the coalition, the other by the United Nations Commission on Darfur.
Nigeria’s presidential elections this weekend are going to be messy, and if last week’s gubernatorial contest is anything to go by, they are unlikely to be free and fair. Reports of electoral fraud ranging from snatched ballot boxes and missing names on the ballots themselves to a complete unavailability of electoral materials in areas such as the Niger delta have undermined what little credibility the Independent National Electoral Commission has left.