New world champion Fernando Alonso insisted on Thursday that seven-time title winner Michael Schumacher can make a comeback next season despite his nightmare year in 2005. Schumacher saw his five-year reign dramatically concluded this season after his Ferrari team slumped behind Alonso’s Renault team and current championship runner-up Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren outfit.
Scientists have launched a global effort to tackle a fungus they fear could have a catastrophic effect on world wheat production. The Global Rust Initiative will implement recommendations made in a report released in Nairobi, Kenya. Nobel Prize-winning crop scientist Norman Borlaug spoke at the launch of the report.
Two impending court dates related to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Oilgate exposé, which revealed that Imvume Management diverted R11-million in public funds to the African National Congress, are set to severely test the rights of South African journalists to protect confidential sources of information.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
Indonesian police on Thursday pledged to beef up security in Bali after last weekend’s deadly bomb blasts, as they hunted for leads in the attacks blamed on Islamic militants. The promise came amid concern about visitors returning to the tourism-dependent island, hit on Saturday for the second time in three years by deadly extremist attacks.
Behind a dilapidated store in a dusty field at Athi River, an export processing zone on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a group of textile factory workers has gathered for a mid-afternoon break. The heat is searing, and the hastily purchased cool drinks quench thirsts. But not tempers.
A special criminal court trying those charged with war crimes in Sierra Leone will run out of money next year unless about $25-million is raised to keep it running. At a United Nations pledging conference held last week, Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette urged countries to give generously.
The JSE was in negative territory just before noon on Thursday, having followed world markets weaker. Gold shares were the sole bright spot buoyed by a higher bullion price. By 11.56am, the all share index dropped 1,9%. Industrials slid 1,71%,
financials fell 1,29% and the banks index weakened 1,66%.
A man who began speaking again after two years in a coma says that he had heard and understood everything going on around him. Salvatore Crisafulli (38) has had great difficulty in speaking since recovering, but, asked if he could remember the past two years, he replied ”yes” and wept. In true Italian style, his mother told reporters that his first word had been ”Mamma”.
An immediate investigation by the Department of Health and the Medicines Control Council into the activities of anti-Aids-drug lobbyist Matthias Rath in the Western Cape township of Khayelitsha is needed, says the University of the Witwatersrand. "What he does is actually against the law," said a director at the university.