Serbian police made fresh arrests and raided apartments on Friday in the hunt for genocide suspect Ratko Mladic as pressure mounted on Belgrade to bring one of the most-wanted men in Europe to justice. The police actions came two days after the European Union punished Serbia for failing to hand Mladic over to the United Nations war-crimes tribunal by the end of April.
Thanks largely to captain Graeme Smith, South Africa were in a strong position on 133-4, with a first innings lead of 14 runs when play ended early on the first day of the third and final Castle Lager Test against New Zealand at the Wanderers on Friday. Smith won the toss and sent New Zealand in to bat on a pitch that offered something for the bowlers.
A matric boy fired shots at fellow pupils aboard a school bus in Pinetown near Durban on Friday afternoon, wounding two classmates, KwaZulu-Natal police said. Spokesperson Inspector Rani John said the boy, from Pinetown Boys High School, was apparently playing with the gun when it went off.
They’ve been trapped in a tiny cage nearly a kilometre underground for 10 days, but two Australian gold miners still haven’t lost their sense of humour. ”They call where they are a two-star hotel — they’re the two stars,” said Matthew Gill, manager of the century-old Beaconsfield Gold Mine.
Rescuers searching for 26 missing crew members of a Greek cargo ship found empty life jackets and a lifebuoy ring among debris floating on the sea near Port Elizabeth on Friday. But this discovery ”has no meaning” as there are often extra life vests on a ship, rescue officials said.
President Thabo Mbeki weighed in on Friday in the succession debate raging in South Africa, saying he wants the next president to be a woman. ”As far as I am concerned, the next president of South Africa should be a woman,” Mbeki said. Mbeki named Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as the first woman deputy president in June after he fired Jacob Zuma from the post in a major corruption scandal.
Irish Republicans on Friday commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army, who died in jail after a 66-day hunger strike. Sands has come to be considered a martyr by the Republican movement, whose quest for Irish reunification divided the Northern Irish community.
She’s seen owners come and go, but the tortoise in the garden of a five-bedroom Victorian terrace house on sale in Exeter, south-west England, should not be changing address any time soon. Eliza has been living at the Prospect Park property, near the local university, since at least World War II.
A meeting between striking security guards and their employers scheduled for Friday has been postponed to next week, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) said. A union spokesperson said the meeting had to be postponed because the employers did not arrive.
Is the male equivalent of the chik-lit just an attempt to make publishing dollars out of the baser elements of masculinity? Christopher Turner reports in New York.