Brazil’s tarnished crown jewel of aviation Varig fell to a United States-Brazilian investor group for a knockdown $24-million — saving the once-proud national carrier from liquidation. The new owner announced an immediate "temporary" halt to all 25 international and national flights except those between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
A stern warning from the All Blacks has put the struggling Springboks under pressure to produce a massive improvement in their Tri-Nations Test in Wellington on Saturday to save the Southern hemisphere rugby championship from turning into a lopsided debacle.
Iraqi authorities extended a daytime curfew on Baghdad on Friday in an apparent effort to prevent violence after one of the bloodiest weeks this year. State television announced a four-hour traffic ban in force every Friday of late to curb car bomb attacks on mosques during weekly prayers would be extended through most of the day.
Zimbabwe has resumed land allocations after they were halted by a corruption audit of the process, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Friday. Its website said Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe announced this at the opening the 2006 annual chiefs’ conference in Kariba on Thursday.
For some time now I have been struggling to keep my spirits up, stay focussed on the positive and live in the state of coruscating optimism that any balanced citizen should be feeling about contemporary life. "Just look around you," said a friend, "and you’ll see there’s no real reason for anyone to feel edgy or depressed.
Ethiopian troops were moving closer to the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday amid fears of all-out war in the volatile Horn of Africa nation where Islamists have risen to power. Ethiopian soldiers were moving beyond the provincial seat of the interim Somali government in Baidoa to the towns of Buur Hakaba and Baledogle.
Kaizer Chiefs were handed a gift-wrapped second crack against Manchester United in the Vodacom Challenge series by virtue of a 2-0 victory over a lacklustre Orlando Pirates at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Rustenburg on Thursday night.
Tiger Woods left the best to last as he closed with a stunning eagle to prowl just one stroke off the British Open first-round lead held by Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell on Thursday. The world’s top player opened with a bogey and looked out of sorts for most of his round over a Royal Liverpool course that was hosting the world’s oldest tournament for the first time in 39 years.
You have to love the Italians, don’t you? If they didn’t exist someone would have to invent them, and just think what sort of tortured imagination it would take to dream up such improbably complex concepts as the Papacy, the Borgias, the Mafia, Niccolo Machiavelli, Silvio Berlusconi, Leonardo da Vinci and the great Juventus referee-fixing scandal.
One coach makes eight changes and confidently expects to win, the other makes five changes and hopes not to lose by too many. There will come a time when Graham Henry’s attempt to introduce the squad system at international level will come a cropper, but this Saturday is not that moment.