The suspected ringleader of the alleged plot to blow up flights out of London’s Heathrow airport has provided details that directly link the conspiracy to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said on Sunday. The Interior Minister, Aftab Sherpao, said Rashid Rauf gave investigators ”many, many clues”.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) was mum on Monday morning about weekend media reports that its president and general secretary were ”at war”. Cosatu president Willie Madisha refused to comment on the reported strife between him and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
His political approach has become a byword for populism, and on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad endowed it with a hi-tech dimension by launching his own web log. The hard-line Iranian leader’s debut on the international blogosphere came in the form of a 2 300-word tract.
Roland Schoeman was to leave Hamburg on Monday with a brand-new car and 000 in his pocket after his world-record-breaking exploits over the weekend. The 26-year-old star was selected as the swimmer of the meet at the Deutscher Ring Aquatics short-course competition in Hamburg.
SABMiller on Monday announced the completion of the acquisition of the Sparks and Steel Reserve brands from United States contract brewing partner McKenzie River Corporation. Following approval from US antitrust authorities, SABMiller assumes ownership of the brands and related trademarks for the caffeinated malt beverage franchise Sparks and leading high-gravity lager Steel Reserve.
If South African Football Association (Safa) CEO Raymond Hack was having sleepless nights over a news report from Rio de Janeiro stating that the imminent signing of Brazil’s Carlos Alberto Parreira as the new Bafana Bafana coach had ”hit trouble”, you could hardly have guessed it from his almost flippant dismissal of the tidings on Sunday.
Hardus Pienaar, winning his third successive gold medal at the 15th African Athletics Championships in a wind-swept Bambous, Mauritius, on Sunday, helped bring South Africa’s tally of gold medals to 10 and the total for the week to 27. Janet Wienand (400m hurdles) and the South Africa’s women’s 4x400m relay team also won their events.
Long known for its rich history and elegant marble-lined metro, Moscow has suddenly discovered that it has a bad rap among foreigners — and is spending tens of millions of dollars to try and turn it around. "After all, Mickey Mouse is just a mouse with good publicity," said Veronika Khilchevskaya, a consultant working on the $27-million campaign to boost the Russian capital’s image.
Ominous posters around Legaspi city, in the Philippines, show the nearby Mayon volcano erupting forcefully, shooting fiery sparks into the sky with blood-red lava dripping from its mouth. But the words on the poster are cheerful rather than frightening: "Visit Legaspi: Mayon Eruption 2006."
It started about 100 years ago with the promotion of proper conditions for the preservation of health, but nudism, as practised on France’s Atlantic coast, has since turned into a multimillion-euro business. "You’ve got to use your brain before you drop your clothes in public," says Jean-Michel Lorefice of Euronat, a 300ha resort at Grayan-et-l’Hopital in the south-western Gironde region.