Cramped housing conditions and air pollution in Athens have given rise to a "super breed" of mosquito that is larger, faster and more adept at locating human prey, a Greek daily reported on Tuesday. Athens-based mosquitoes can detect humans at a distance of 25m to 30m, unlike their colour-blind counterparts, <i>Ta Nea</i> daily reported.
Acclaimed Flemish artist Frans Claerhout (87) has died in a Bloemfontein hospital, radio news reports said on Tuesday. He died in his sleep, two weeks after being admitted for pneumonia. Born in Belgium in 1919, he became a Catholic priest and came to South Africa as a missionary in 1946, ministering to the people of the Free State.
When Fred Trueman, who died aged 75 from cancer on Saturday, had Neil Hawke of Australia caught by Colin Cowdrey at The Oval in 1964 to become the first man to take 300 Test wickets, his place in cricket’s record books was assured — but his place in the affections of the sporting public had already been secured.
A senior member of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was killed while on his way home on Monday night, the union said. Elias Mulaudzi, the NUM’s branch chairperson at Carletonville’s Driefontein gold mine, was murdered while on his way home from work. ”This is a great loss to us all,” NUM spokesperson general secretary Frans Baleni said on Tuesday.
Nasa officials decided a crack in Discovery‘s fuel tank insulating foam was not enough of a threat to stop the countdown on Tuesday to their first Independence Day holiday shuttle launch and ”a nice fireworks display” for the United States. Inspectors spotted the crack on Monday.
The injury status within the Springbok squad is still uncertain two days ahead of the team’s departure for their overseas leg of the Tri-Nations. This was revealed at a Springbok press briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday with assistant coaches Gert Smal and Allistair Coetzee.
A team of experts from West African regional economic grouping the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), said on Tuesday Liberia would need about -billion to rehabilitate its power sector, ravaged by long years of civil war. ”Resuscitation of Liberia’s power system requires a lot of funding,” said a seven-member team.
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Football’s world governing body will help South Africa organise the 2010 World Cup but believes the country is more than capable of staging the event, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said on Tuesday. ”South Africa is a multi-cultural country of different tribes … and you do need a certain kind of intelligence to bring this all together,” Blatter said.
Pirates have attacked two United Nations-chartered vessels in the Malacca Strait off the coast of tsunami-hit Aceh province in Indonesia, an international maritime watchdog said on Tuesday. Both ships were ferrying construction materials to Indonesia for the UN’s World Food Programme when pirates boarded the ships under the cover of darkness on Sunday.
The White House on Monday unveiled plans to sell Pakistan up to 36 F-16 fighters in a deal that could total -billion and which drew an unhappy response from United States ally India. Washington had blocked the sale of F-16s to Pakistan for 15 years to protest its nuclear weapons programme, but gave the green light in March 2005 to reward the South Asian ally for its help in the ”war on terror”.