Roger Federer’s preparation for the year’s first grand slam, the Australian Open in 10 days’ time, gathered momentum as he reached the final in defence of his Qatar Open title on Friday. The world number one from Switzerland produced his best performance of the week so far as he overcame Tommy Haas.
Two-time defending champion Stephane Peterhansel, driving a Mitsubishi, won the gruelling seventh stage of the Dakar Rally between Zouerat and Atar, Mauritania, on Friday. The Frenchman clocked five hours, 52 minutes and 18 seconds over the 499km timed section. Giniel de Villiers of South Africa, who had been the overnight leader, was fourth on the stage and is now fourth overall.
Reigning Standard Bank Cup champions the Eagles went one step closer to retaining their title when they beat the Highveld Lions at the Wanderers by 34 runs on Friday night. The Lions, chasing 264 for victory, started off briskly enough with a first-wicket partnership of 76 between Adam Bacher and Stephen Cook
The unsuspecting might have imagined this was the African Nations Cup itself as Bafana Bafana secured a 2-1 win over a Premier Soccer League (PSL) XI in a hammer-and-tongs dress rehearsal at King’s Park in Durban on Friday night. Calvin Marlin in the Bafana goal gave a characteristically flawless performance.
The City of Johannesburg removed 441 shacks from the Jukskei River banks on Friday following this week’s floods in Diepsloot. ”Temporary accommodation has been provided to the victims while the clean-up process is happening,” said city spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane.
Survivors of the collapse of a hostel in the holy city of Mecca recounted on Friday the horror of the latest tragedy to strike the hajj as the death toll rose to 76. ”I heard one big noise,” said Tayeb Mizasha (70), a Frenchman of Algerian origin, as he lay in bed in Mecca’s King Faisal hospital with broken ribs and a bruised face.
The Zimbabwe government has denied receiving strong criticism from the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of its human rights record, including a mass eviction campaign it conducted in urban slums, the state-run Herald newspaper said on Friday.
Thirty years ago, Lake Mweru in the far north of Zambia had so many fish it was said a man could catch a tonne a day with just two small nets. But increasing poverty, conflict and the closure of mines have lured tens of thousands of young men to the lake to start fishing — and the HIV/Aids prevalence rate is rising alarmingly fast.
The real cost to the United States of the Iraq war is likely to be between -trillion and -trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert. They say the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.
An 11-year-old girl became the third victim of bird flu in Turkey on Friday, days after her brother and sister died from the disease. Hulya Kocyigit died in a hospital in the eastern city of Van, as teams from the World Health Organisation and the European Commission arrived in the region to assess the risk.