At least six people were killed and 11 wounded when gunmen ambushed a German aid-agency vehicle in southern Sudan, witnesses said on Wednesday, highlighting insecurity in the region. Five Sudanese teenagers riding in the back of a pick-up belonging to the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and one were shot dead in the incident.
Banking group Absa says that house-price growth is at its lowest in four-and-a-half years. According to the latest Absa house-price index, nominal year-on-year growth of 13,6% was recorded in June this year compared with a growth rate of 14,3% in May. This was the lowest year-on-year growth since January 2002 when it was also 13,6%.
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After he converted a last-minute penalty to beat Australia in the second round of the World Cup, Francesco Totti said winning the ”scudetto” with AS Roma in 2001 remained the highlight of his career. Maybe he’ll have a new most memorable moment if Italy wins the title on Sunday. ”It’s the realisation of a dream. We only need a little bit more to make history,” Totti said.
Young Asian readers seeking the thrill of ghouls and haunted houses no longer turn only to Western favorites to satisfy their itch. Asia’s answer to the record-selling British boy wizard Harry Potter is the Mr Midnight series of books. The appeal, says author Jim Aitchison, is the books’ ability to address an Asian child’s values and sensibilities.
The Second Network Operator (SNO) will deliver business services from the end of the year and general services for the public from next year. ”The SNO has adopted a phased approach to rolling-out its services,” managing director Ajay Pandey said in the statement. ”We are currently in discussion with various potential customers and are now in advanced stages of readiness to deliver.”
Wimbledon semifinalist Kim Clijsters believes China’s history-making Li Na has all the weapons to shoot her into the world’s elite. The Belgian defeated Li 6-4, 7-5 on Tuesday to reach the last four at the All England Club, but Li wasn’t disgraced and had plenty to be pleased about having become the first Chinese player to make the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam.
A former national guard captain whose military service was supposed to end seven years ago was sent to Iraq for a year by mistake because of an incorrect discharge date in his records. Jim Dillinger was 43 when he received a letter from the Defence Department in May 2004 saying he was one of 5 600 members of the Individual Ready Reserve being sent to Iraq.
There is little to break the silence at Kolwezi, once the economic powerhouse of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), now a landscape of industrial desolation. Potholed roads lead to ruined, rusted factories. Trucks and bulldozers are lined up neatly, as if ready to roll, but the wheels are missing and the engines have cobwebs.
Palestinians holding an Israeli soldier said on Tuesday that they had ended negotiations on his fate after Israel ignored an ultimatum to begin releasing prisoners. The Hamas-led militants holding Corporal Gilad Shalit had said if Israel had not begun releasing some of the 1 500 prisoners by 6am on Tuesday it would ”bear the consequences”.
Western Cape road users will soon have to pay a provincial fuel tax of between 10 and 50 cents a litre in addition to the current national levy, the media reports said on Wednesday. The money raised through the levy would be used to pay for the rehabilitation and upgrading of transport infrastructure and to develop a high quality public transport system.