Oprah Winfrey used her talkshow tactic of springing surprises on her audiences at the weekend, when she told 73 girls who had turned up for an interview that they had been selected for a new school she is building in South Africa. Winfrey has been working for six years on creating the school for disadvantaged girls.
Gunbattles rocked the Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa for a third day on Tuesday after the announcement of a presidential run-off vote. A Reuters correspondent heard both small arms fire and the thump of heavier weaponry on Tuesday and saw army tanks moving in the direction of the latest fighting.
”Poke out his eyes! Kick him between the legs!” Karate expert Duncan Bomba yells instructions at 200 Kenyan schoolgirls watching in amazement as he ferociously attacks a colleague posing as a rapist. With their navy and white school uniforms, tightly braided hair and socks pulled up to their knees, two girls coyly attempt the moves as Bomba takes on the role of attacker.
A key United Nations Security Council member said on Monday he was puzzled by an Arab League request for an indefinite delay in a planned council meeting on the crisis in Darfur. Ghanaian UN ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the Security Council president for August, said he got a positive response when he asked the Arab League about the meeting last week.
A flock of hungry sheep gobbled up banknotes totalling 100 000 yuan ($12 500) that were the public funds of a northern Chinese village, state media reported on Tuesday. A farmer who was also the treasurer of Linjiawan village in Shaanxi province was devastated when he found out the cash he had hidden underneath his sheep pasture was mostly chewed up by the beasts.
At their first meeting they held hands nervously, played with their dolls to break the ice and then wouldn’t let each other go. The three-year-old girls, Mia Funk from Chicago and Mia Ramirez from Miami, looked and acted just like sisters. Now, in a remarkable tale of coincidence, two sets of parents are working out how to bring up the twin girls living 2 240km apart.
New Zealand completed their first training session in South Africa with a clearer idea of how tough it will be to achieve only their second series victory on Springbok soil. Only Sean Fitzpatrick’s 1996 All Blacks have come away from the tough, rarefied conditions of South Africa with victory and with the Tri-Nations won, the team are treating the two Tests as a mini-series.
Barack Obama, the only black United States Senator, criticised South African leaders on Monday for their slow response to HIV/Aids, saying they were wrong to contrast ”African science and Western science”. Aids activists say Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is creating confusion by pushing traditional medicines and a recipe of garlic, beetroot, lemon and African potatoes to combat HIV/Aids.
Italy has offered to lead a United Nations force for Lebanon, but a week after a truce calmed Israel’s war with Hezbollah guerrillas, few other countries with proven military capacity have made substantial commitments. European Union countries are meeting on Wednesday to discuss concerns about clear rules of engagement for the force.
Macabre SMSs among a group of a dozen Dutch girls egging each other on to commit suicide have provided a new twist to the well-documented dangers of modern, instant-communication technology for the young. The revelation has provoked a flood of soul-searching in The Netherlands.