A suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in northern Baghdad on Friday, killing at least seven people and wounding another 18, police said. The bomber, wearing an explosives belt, struck just before Friday prayers at the Buratha mosque, where at least 85 people were killed on April 7 in an attack by three suicide bombers.
President Thabo Mbeki laid wreaths at the Hector Pieterson memorial site in Soweto on Friday as part of the 30th anniversary of the June 16 1976 student uprisings. Mbeki was accompanied by Minister in the Presidency Dr Essop Pahad, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa and Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: The King is mesmerisingly watchable, despite the occasional desire to avert one’s eyes, writes Shaun de Waal.
Former South African president FW de Klerk was on Friday being gradually taken off a ventilator following respiratory problems after an operation to remove a cancerous tumour, his spokesperson said. ”He is responding well to treatment. He is being taken off sedation and being weaned off the ventilator and gradually starting to breathe himself,” David Steward said.
The United Nations appealed for millions of dollars in aid on Friday to help combat possible food shortages in the desert nation of Mauritania. The UN World Food Programme said in a statement its relief operation there "is facing a complete break in supplies at the end of July — exactly the time of year when food needs are at their annual peak".
Colin Montgomerie was the only player to pass golf’s toughest test in the red colours on Thursday, as his one-under 69 gave him the first-round lead in the 2006 US Open. Montgomerie’s was the only under-par effort on a day when a wind-blown Winged Foot humbled a host of top players, including Tiger Woods.
A blistering afternoon at the Amahouro stadium in Kigali last October and deep into the second half Angola seem powerless to break the deadlock against Rwanda in the final game of their World Cup qualifying campaign. Angola need to match Nigeria’s victory against Zimbabwe, a 5-1 success that finished slightly earlier, to ensure an improbable berth in the finals for the first time.
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Arsenal’s Freddie Ljungberg fired Sweden to the brink of the second phase of the World Cup on Thursday, his late header sending Paraguay home in a 1-0 win. Sweden now face compatriot Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England on Tuesday as they bid to win Group B with either hosts Germany or Ecuador waiting in the next round.
In the early summer of 2006 the Spanish government confirmed that it was considering regarding the great apes as ”legal persons”, thereby bestowing on them all the rights known at that time as human.
A recently released report by Amnesty International says Norinco 9mm pistols, which are cheaply manufactured in China, are commonly used in cases of robbery, rape and other crimes in South Africa. The report notes that, despite South Africa’s stringent Firearms Control Act of 2000, firearms are filtering into the underworld after being lost or stolen.