South Africa hope several of their key players recover from injuries before the triangular series with Sri Lanka and India begins next Monday. The South Africans, keen to make amends after their 2-0 Test series defeat by Sri Lanka, have concerns over the fitness of pace bowler Makhaya Ntini, all-rounder Shaun Pollock and captain Mark Boucher.
British police on Thursday said they foiled a plot to blow up several aircraft flying between Britain and the United States in what Washington said might have been an attempted al-Qaeda strike. ”We are confident we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction,” said London police’s Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson.
The second phase of construction on the Gautrain will proceed in Johannesburg after judgment was reserved in a recent court application to stop work for an environmental impact report, the rail construction company said on Thursday. Last week, Pretoria residents applied to the Pretoria High court to halt construction immediately for an environmental impact report.
Passengers and stewards on board a Qatar Airways plane heading to Qatar from Jordan overpowered an Eritrean passenger who tried to force his way into the cockpit on Thursday, an airline spokesperson said. She told Al Jazeera television that the Eritrean man (21) was carrying a box containing an unknown substance, prompting the captain to return to Jordan immediately.
The former joint chief executives of the now-defunct LeisureNet group, Peter Gardener and Rodney Mitchell, were on Thursday acquitted on the main charge against them, one of fraud involving an alleged R1,9-million kickback. However, acting Judge Dirk Uijs ruled that they had a case to answer on the alternatives to the fraud charge.
The Ministry of Health has slammed Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon’s Women’s Day speech in which he said that the ministers of health and foreign affairs were ”letting women down”. ”Leon is the last person to speak on racial and gender transformation in this country,” said the ministry in a statement on Thursday.
Hezbollah guerrillas fought Israeli troops pushing further into south-east Lebanon on Thursday, though an Israeli Cabinet minister said plans for a deeper ground assault were on hold to give diplomacy a chance. Hezbollah also fired nearly 70 rockets into Israel, killing a woman and a toddler in an Israeli Arab village, medics said.
A super typhoon, the strongest to threaten China in half a century, slammed into the south-east coast on Thursday killing at least two people, injuring more than 80 and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes. Typhoon Saomai made landfall in Zhejiang province, hitting Cangnan county just after officials there declared a state of emergency, Xinhua news agency said.
Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika on Thursday demanded the resignation of a top prosecutor for withdrawing corruption charges against the nation’s former president. Director of Public Prosecutions Ishmael Wadi last week unconditionally dropped all 42 counts of corruption, fraud and abuse of office filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau against former president Bakili Muluzi.
Chelsea skipper John Terry has been appointed as England’s new captain, the Football Association said on Thursday. Terry takes over the armband after David Beckham stepped down from the role in the wake of England’s World Cup quarterfinal defeat on penalties by Portugal last month.