France’s Thierry Magnaldi in a Schlesser-Ford won the car section on the sixth stage of the Dakar Rally in Mauritania on Thursday, with South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers grabbing the overall lead. Magnaldi clocked three hours, 22 minutes and 54 seconds over the 444km timed section on the 792km-long run.
Conceived in confusion and executed in haste, Britain’s Millennium Dome turned out to be a £750-million symbol of the vanity of leaders who wanted to put on a big show without having to bother their heads about the little matter of substance. The new Wembley Stadium has a sense of purpose the Dome never had.
Alexandre Gaydamak. Blimey, sounds like a drag artist but he may well be the man to drag Portsmouth out of the mire. On Wednesday this week, the club issued a statement confirming: ”Milan Mandaric and Alexandre Gaydamak will work closely together to further all aspects of Portsmouth Football Club.”
After a year in which Yelena Isinbayeva dominated her rivals more convincingly than any other world champion in sport, becoming the first woman in history to clear the once-mythical 5m barrier in pole vaulting, her eyes glitter at the prospect of still greater glories and riches in 2006.
”The divisions between the throng and the stand-offish critic can only evaporate when an Australian commentator opens his flapping cakehole. Pundit-baiting has a long and ignoble history in this country, perhaps understandable given the linguistic and intellectual hole we fell into after the retirement of Charles Fortune,” writes Tom Eaton.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is due in Zimbabwe in March to see for himself the effects of the government’s controversial shack clearance campaign. President Robert Mugabe agreed to the visit after discussion’s with a top UN official at the Franco-African summit held in Mali in December.
South African offspinner Johan Botha was reported for chucking in his Test debut, which ended in an eight-wicket defeat on Friday to Australia. The 23-year-old from Johannesburg bowled 12,3 overs on Friday, taking the wicket of Matthew Hayden (90) and returning 1-77 as Australia cruised to 288-2 chasing 287 for victory.
Microsoft was under the spotlight on Friday over its blocking of a Chinese internet blogger, in the latest case of a major Western technology firm helping Beijing curtail free speech. The MSN Spaces-hosted web log, or blog, belonging to Beijing-based media researcher Zhao Jing was closed down this week after he posted articles critical of a management purge at the Beijing News daily.
The Democratic Alliance on Friday warned that the ”unfair” allocation of houses to locals and foreigners could exacerbate the situation in Olivienhoutbosch south of Pretoria. Violent clashes broke out between South Africans and foreign nationals from Mozambique and Zimbabwe at the informal settlement on Wednesday after a South African was killed, allegedly by a Zimbabwean.
Vietnamese prosecutors have recommended that former British rock star Gary Glitter stand trial for committing obscene acts with children, officials said on Friday. Glitter previously served prison time in Britain after being found with a massive collection of child pornography.