Real Madrid’s elimination from the Champions League by Arsenal may signal a revolution at the ailing powerhouse. Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at Highbury ousted Madrid before the quarterfinals 1-0 on aggregate, and looks likely to sentence the team to a third straight season without a major trophy.
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Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser has denied making a number of attempted rape claims when she returned to South Africa from exile. Earlier on Thursday, the Johannesburg High Court heard that while she was a child three men had raped her, and one had attempted to rape her on separate occasions.
China expressed shock on Thursday after Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso called Taiwan a ”country”, and accused him of intervening in its internal affairs. Aso told a parliamentary committee that Taiwan is a ”law-governed country”, the latest in a series of remarks that have angered Beijing.
The political crisis over the management of six United States ports by a Dubai-owned company worsened on Wednesday when a Republican-dominated committee in the House of Representatives voted to block the deal. The move deepens the fissures between the White House and Republicans facing midterm election battles.
Small teams of special operations troops will be stationed at United States embassies to gather intelligence and assist in counter-terrorism operations, moving into a domain traditionally occupied by the CIA. Analysts said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been pushing for an expanded role for the military since the September 11 attacks.
The Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation has selected South African photographer David Goldblatt to receive the 2006 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, it was announced on Thursday. The prize will be presented at a ceremony held in Göteborg, Sweden, on November 25, 2006.
Acting Premier Ehud Olmert, the frontrunner for the March 28 elections in Israel, has fleshed out a key election promise in vowing to set Israel’s permanent borders within four years if his Kadima party wins. Olmert made the comments in an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Savings of between 13% and 15% on medicines are on the cards if the draft regulations for pharmacies’ dispensing fees announced on Thursday are approved. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced the draft dispensing fees, which would be on a sliding scale.
A two-seater light aircraft made an emergency landing on the N12 highway between Lenasia and Westonaria in Gauteng, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Thursday. ”We know at the moment that the pilot had engine failure on approach for landing on runway 13 at Baragwanath airfield,” said a CAA accident investigator.
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An African National Congress (ANC) court docked six months pay from two men who had sex with Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser — not because the court found she had been raped, but because she was a child. The Johannesburg High Court heard on Thursday that one of the men still denies he had sex with her when she was a teenager.