The race card will be used in attempts to cling to the lucrative Eastern Cape franchise, argues Andy Capostagno. So the madness is over and the Southern Spears will not participate in next year’s Super 14. Instead, the South African Rugby Union (Saru) will spend time, money and resources on putting ”measures in place to help the franchise and the region reach acceptable levels of readiness”.
When the Highbury stadium was built 93 years ago, few would have predicted a European farewell along the lines of Wednesday night’s 1-0 win over Villarreal. Amid the diving and the feigned injuries from the ”Yellow Submarine”, the star of the all-foreign north London outfit in maroon shirts was a man from Côte d’Ivoire, Kolo Touré, who scored the only goal as Arsenal fans began their long goodbye to the compact art-deco stadium.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched on the outskirts of the Nepalese capital on Friday, again defying a government-imposed curfew a day after security forces opened fire on demonstrators. An anti-king protester wounded in Thursday’s violence died, raising the death toll for that day to four.
Bowing to intense pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has agreed to allow Shi’ite lawmakers to find someone else to head the new government, abandoning his claim on another term in the face of Sunni and Kurdish opposition. Al-Jaafari’s abrupt reversal was an apparent breakthrough in the struggle to form a national unity government.
Skyrocketing energy prices will figure prominently on the agenda of the world’s seven largest economic powers when they gather on Friday. Discussions on worldwide economic matters will carry over into the weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Zimbabwe ruling party Zanu-PF’s plan to amend the Constitution to delay the 2008 presidential election until 2010 to facilitate Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s succession to President Mugabe appears to have collapsed in acrimony after its designated architect, justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, confirmed it is no longer on the cards.
A major earthquake hit a distant, sparsely populated region of Russia’s far east early on Friday, causing unknown damage and possible injuries, emergency officials said. The United States Geological Survey and Japan’s Meteorological Agency estimated the temblor to be about 7,7-magnitude.
Venezuela is among the most violent places in Latin America, and critics of President Hugo Chávez are increasingly accusing him of failing to make crime a priority. A series of particularly heinous murders sparked protests earlier this month by crowds demanding immediate action to make the streets safer.
On a day overshadowed by protests against Beijing’s human rights record, United States President George Bush and China’s leader, Hu Jintao, made little headway on Thursday in resolving issues of trade, or easing global tensions over North Korea and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The leader of the United States Episcopal church, which is in danger of being expelled from the worldwide Anglican communion for its election of an openly homosexual bishop, has warned parishioners of the diocese of California that they would widen the confrontation it they chose another gay bishop.