Gunmen riding motorcycles opened fire on worshippers from a minority Muslim sect at a mosque in Pakistan Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding 12, a security official and police said. Three attackers sprayed the dawn prayer session marking the second day of Ramadan in Mong village, part of Mandi Bahauddin town, 100km south of the capital Islamabad.
Australian skipper Ricky Ponting won his second successive toss and decided to bat in the second Super Series cricket one-dayer against a World XI at Docklands stadium in Melbourne on Friday. The world team, which must win to keep the series alive after losing the opening game by 93 runs on Wednesday, was unchanged but made West Indian Chris Gayle its super sub replacing Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi.
Kimi Raikkonen suffered a disaster ahead of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix when his McLaren failed halfway through opening practice as his teammate Pedro de la Rosa topped the times here on Friday. Finn Raikkonen has become accustomed to problems with his rapid but unreliable McLaren this year.
The Democratic Alliance has pulled out of talks to design a framework governing political donations, sparking an attack from the Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) over the party’s ”superficial” commitment to democracy, media reports said on Friday.
The late Brett Kebble’s mining empire may end up in the knacker’s yard, according to analysts who have been following it closely. ”My sense is that JCI and Randgold & Exploration [two Kebble-controlled companies] won’t exist in their present form a year from now,” says Georges Lequime, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in London.
Brett Kebble’s funeral was reminiscent of the Eighties. With the flag-draped coffin, the national anthem reverberating through St George’s Cathedral and a guard of honour by the African National Congress Youth League, his life ended in a struggle send-off.
If Liberia had a lightbulb for everyone who has promised electricity as part of its reconstruction, the capital Monrovia would be lit up like Las Vegas, and not wreathed in perpetual darkness. As the electoral campaign for October 11 polls winds down, presidential candidates are stepping up their promises, committing to bring current and running water to the roughly one million residents.
Thanks to a British television competition South Africa’s Rachel Zadok has had her novel, <i>Gem Squash Tokoloshe</i>, published by Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom. Irene Madonko reports.
The moral and political imperatives underpinning transformation, affirmative action and black empowerment are eroded by those who use these as smokescreens to pursue their selfish interests, writes Mike van Graan.
Saxophonist Robbie Jansen is as close as one gets to being a specialist and he has been nicknamed the Cape Doctor because he blows like Cape Town’s wretched southeaster, writes Julian Jonker.