Alastair Cook and Ian Bell both scored their second Test hundreds in as many matches as England built a commanding lead against Pakistan at Old Trafford on Friday. At stumps Pakistan were 12-0 for in their second innings, a deficit of 330, after England had declared their first innings on 461-9 with Bell 106 not out following left-hander Cook’s Test-best 127.
The United States military said on Saturday it had captured four suspected al-Qaeda operatives in a raid on their hideout in eastern Afghanistan. There were no casualties on either side during the operation conducted early on Saturday in Sal Kalay village in Khost province near the Pakistan border, it said in a statement.
A Pretoria High Court judge on Friday in no uncertain terms said the courts were fed up with the high rate of crime and with the disregard criminals had for the life of innocent people. He warned that criminals would feel the brunt of the law. This speech, by Judge Aubrey Ledwaba, was prompted by the killing of a Brakpan couple — Phillipus Meyburg (53) and his wife Ria (39).
Internationally successful South African rock act Seether’s front man, Shaun Morgan, has entered a rehabilitation clinic, and the band have cancelled all their August appearances until further notice. Morgan has established himself as one of the leading singers in rock over the past five years.
Music television is the endangered species of the pop world, and is learning the hard way that it must adapt to the internet age, or die. Britain’s Top of the Pops, the world’s longest-running weekly music show, will be declared extinct on Sunday when it is broadcast for the last time on BBC.
An explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China killed at least 12 people on Friday and prompted the evacuation of 7 000 others, state media and officials said. Also on Friday, two unrelated explosions at another chemical plant and aboard an oil tanker injured at least five people, with two others missing and feared dead.
A United Nations human rights body told Washington on Friday that any ”secret detention” centres for terrorism suspects it operates abroad violates international law and should be shut immediately. The UN Human Rights Committee said the United States appears to have been detaining people ”secretly for months and years”.
Asia’s biggest annual security conference issued a toned-down statement on North Korea on Friday, after the communist state threatened to quit the organisation if it condemns the country’s missile launches. The final statement was softer than a draft statement seen by The Associated Press earlier in the day.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: My recollection of a country unified on at least one issue came back to me while watching Jason Reitman’s debut feature, <i>Thank You for Smoking</i>, writes Shaun de Waal.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK</b>: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has just done a Bob Dylan, taking the music to the masses with his new electronic protest album, <i>The Eraser</i>, writes Lloyd Gedye.