South Africa’s Sharks moved into third place in Super 14 rugby after a nine-try, 59-16 win on Saturday over Queensland, handing the Reds their eighth straight loss. ”I think this showed the difference between a top side and where we are,” said Queensland captain John Roe, who scored his team’s only try. ”It was very, very disappointing.”
President Thabo Mbeki says he wants to move swiftly to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe next year. Mbeki was appointed last month by regional leaders as mediator between Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change after a government crackdown on opposition leaders.
Pirates have released a United Nations-chartered cargo ship and an Indian vessel they captured in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of Somalia, a maritime official said on Saturday. Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme said the hijackers freed the MV Rozen and MV Nimatullah on Friday.
In a move slammed as an attempt to muzzle critics in a country lauded as a paragon of democracy, Botswana has marked out a group of 17 foreign journalists, human rights activists and academics as now needing a visa to enter the country. Usually visitors to Botswana get a visa stamp in their passport directly on entry to the country.
A Soweto man is due to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday after his teenage girlfriend was found dead in his fridge, Gauteng police said on Saturday. The body of the 17-year-old, from Ermelo in Mpumalanga, was found crouched in the fridge on Friday morning, said Superintendent Thembi Nkhwashu.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa snatched pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix with a scorching last lap in Saturday’s qualifying. The Brazilian, with a time of one minute, 35,043 seconds, was almost three-10ths of a second quicker than double world champion Fernando Alonso’s McLaren.
More than 800 people were left homeless in four separate fires that gutted informal settlements around Cape Town since Friday night, Western Cape firefighters said. About 250 dwellings were destroyed in the fires in Khayelitsha, Fish Hoek and two settlements near Milnerton.
South African club soccer faces a reality check on Saturday when Mamelodi Sundowns host title holders al-Ahly of Egypt in an African Champions League final-round qualifier. Sundowns are about to retain the domestic title and have a soft quarterfinals draw in the national cup, leaving Ahly as the centre of attention.
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The embalmed body lies in a zipped black bag in the basement cold room of a Kingston funeral home, the temperature fixed at 4,4 degrees Celsius, impervious to the tropical heat outside. Almost three weeks after he died, apparently strangled, Bob Woolmer is not going anywhere. And just as the body has been preserved, so has the mystery.
Agence France-Presse (AFP), the global news agency based in Paris, has settled its lawsuit against Google and will allow the internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP journalists. The deal, announced on Friday, settles the copyright infringement lawsuit that AFP filed in March 2005.