Two policemen died in a suspected Tamil Tiger mine attack in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, the third in as many days, raising to 21 the number of people killed in the latest wave of bombings, police said. The policemen were on their way to Trincomalee to buy provisions for colleagues stationed further north of the main city in the eastern coastal district when they were ambushed.
The dollar extended losses in Asian trade on Wednesday following Iran’s announcement that it had joined the nuclear states, with the market cautious also ahead of United States trade data, dealers said. The dollar fell to ¥118,03 in Tokyo morning trade from ¥118,21 in New York late on Tuesday.
The mafia ”boss of bosses” who had eluded Italian police for more than four decades was finally captured in Sicily on Tuesday as most of his compatriots had their attention focused on a different kind of ruthless power struggle. The man nicknamed ”the tractor”, because of the way he crushed his opponents, was arrested without a shot being fired near his home town of Corleone.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday night refused to concede he had been defeated in Italy’s general election and called for a re-examination of tens of thousands of votes that he said could alter the outcome. After a day of sullen silence in which official results gave a slender victory to the centre-left in both houses of Parliament, Italy’s Berlusconi said Italy should consider forming a German-style cross-party ”grand alliance”.
On the banks of Africa’s largest lake, a deadly cocktail of poverty, prostitution and tribal widow inheritance practices is fuelling a surge in HIV/Aids even as progress is made in other areas. Here in Western Kenya where the water and fish from Lake Victoria are lifelines, communities are struggling against an alarming new rise in HIV/Aids cases that has plunged residents into despair.
Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee, according to a team of United States and Israeli scientists. Their study argues that salty springs along the Galilee’s western shore can stop surface water circulating at cold temperatures and there were unusually cold spells, lasting up to 200 years, in biblical times.
There’s an advert emblazoned on the sides of London double-decker buses for a computer game: ”Paste your girlfriend’s white bits here.” Another irritating sexualisation of public space, another insistent, insidious message of how culture shapes expectations of our sexuality.
South Africans are deeply xenophobic. This unpleasant fact has been borne out by public opinion research since 1995, and can be seen in the all too frequent attacks on immigrants and popular calls for stiffer controls on immigration. Significantly, these attitudes are not the result of first-hand experience with foreigners.
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"Not suitable for children under 17", says the box of the little Blow-Up dolls. Nothing to do with sex, the bright plastic figurines have a bomb-shaped head with a fuse, and angry eyes telling you they’re ready to blow up any minute. The display of Dunnys — little plastic creatures — on the same shelf states: "This is a work of art, not a toy."