Eleven British school pupils, who were part of a group on a rugby and netball tour in South Africa, were attacked and robbed of R10Â 000 and 10 cellphones in Honeydew earlier this week, West Rand police said on Saturday. ”The pupils were having a farewell party … on Tuesday at about 11pm when eight men attacked them,” said Captain Siphiwe Ndlovu.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed for Israel on Saturday to discuss terms for a United Nations Security Council resolution to end its 18-day-old war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Rice, who visited Jerusalem and Beirut earlier in the week, was expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the evening and hold more talks in Israel on Sunday.
The death toll from an explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China has risen to 22 but more than 7 000 people evacuated after the blast have now gone home, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday. The blast, which occurred on Friday morning when a chemical reactor exploded during a test run, injured 28 others.
The Burundian government announced on Friday it had agreed on the terms of a ceasefire with the country’s last active rebel movement, in spite of concerns by the insurgents over the sharing of government and military posts. Burundi’s Interior Minister Evariste Ndayishimiye said the government and the National Liberation Forces planned to sign the ceasefire agreement next week.
America’s Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, facing the loss of his title in a doping scandal, on Friday insisted again he was innocent. The 30-year-old rider said that his positive test for testosterone showed up levels which ”are absolutely natural and produced by my own organism”.
Sudanese government forces and allied militias attacked bases of a new rebel alliance in Darfur despite a ceasefire in the violent west, officials and rebels said on Saturday. An unpopular African Union-mediated peace deal was signed in May by only one of three rebel negotiating factions.
They swallow everything that comes their way and exercise the world’s finest minds, but the portrayal of black holes as awe-inspiring celestial menaces may be woefully inaccurate, a team of scientists claim. Indeed, they might not exist at all. According to the researchers, the traditional astronomers’ view of the universe should be replaced.
An Odendaalsrus man who held his girlfriend and two-year-old boy hostage in a house in Kutlwanong was overpowered by police early on Saturday morning, Free State police said. ”This morning at about 6am members of the task force from Pretoria went into the house and managed to arrest the suspect,” Superintendent William Mokoena said.
Another 21 people died from lightning and house collapses in northern India, an official said on Saturday, taking the nationwide death toll to at least 328 since the monsoon season began two months ago. The new casualties were reported in northern Uttar Pradesh state, one of the worst hit by the heavy rains.
The South African Post Office and the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) signed a wage agreement on Friday ranging from a 5% increase for the highest paid workers to 9% for the lowest-paid workers. According to the agreement, other items agreed on include a R50 increase in the monthly housing subsidy and an extension on family responsibility leave for bereavement or illness.