The anti-Aids ABC message — abstain, be faithful and use condoms — has left many of the continent’s youth confused, an Aids conference in Durban heard on Wednesday. In a survey of 1Â 766 pupils conducted in the Valley of a Thousand Hills near Durban, only one schoolgirl said abstinence is ”not having sex until one is married”.
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Perennial under-achievers Spain kick-started their bid to top Group H with a blast on Wednesday with a resounding 4-0 win over World Cup debutants Ukraine. With Spanish icon Raul starting on the bench, Valencia marksman David Villa took centre stage for Luis Aragones’s side with a goal in each half.
About 100 people are believed to have died in a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague in the strife-torn north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in Geneva on Wednesday. The WHO said that suspected bases of bubonic plague have also been reported.
The Scorpions welcomed an appeal against a precedent-setting Cape High Court judgement on Wednesday, in which illicit diamond trader Tony Dos Santos was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. The appeal ”will allow the jurisprudence relating to racketeering to be developed so that it finds national application”, the Scorpions said.
The Power Alert system, launched on May 22, has taken only three weeks to prove its value, Eskom said on Thursday. The power utility said it expected a turbulent weekend in the Cape after the shutdown of the Koeberg nuclear power station’s unit one on Friday afternoon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Wednesday that his contested plan to set Israel’s borders on the West Bank with or without agreement from the Palestinians was unstoppable. "My plan cannot be stopped and is the most that Israel is prepared to agree to," he told reporters accompanying him on a state visit to Paris.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Wednesday he had held "constructive" talks with Iran’s main nuclear negotiator in his first contacts with the Iranians since he visited Tehran last week. "I had a phone conversation today [Wednesday] with Mr Ari Larijani. It was a constructive conversation," Solana told reporters in Brussels.
The capital of Guinea, Conakry, was at a standstill but calm on Wednesday, two days after security forces fired on protesting students and killed 18. Tens of thousands of high school students rioted on Monday after their final exams were cancelled because of a nationwide work stoppage.
Teachers need to ensure that their colleagues behave professionally, a teachers’ union said on Wednesday in reaction to a South African Human Rights Commission report according to which violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, is widespread in schools.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) ”ongoing marginalisation” by the tripartite alliance aggravates unemployment and poverty, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday. Vavi told a press briefing in Johannesburg that the African National Congress-led alliance continues to marginalise some of its members.