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.
A little over a year ago, Absa unclipped its sock-suspenders and stepped gingerly into the synthetic amniotic goo of the rebirthing pool. A branding guru stood nearby, revelling in his essences by smelling his armpits, while a swathe of Johannesburg copywriters hovered anxiously behind him, holding bundles of swaddling clothes and invoices.
Former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said on Friday he is close to reaching an agreement to manage 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa, a deal that would mark his return to the continent after nearly 40 years. Parreira, who resigned from Brazil last week, met with officials from the South African Football Association (Safa) in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.