British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday said new explosive devices used against British troops in Iraq were suspected to have come from ”Iranian elements”. Blair warned Tehran the United Kingdom would ”not be intimidated” into giving up its demand that Iran should abandon its nuclear programme.
Serbia on Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary since the ouster of then strongman Slobodan Milosevic, with his democratic successors expressing regret over the slow pace of change since the massive popular uprising. ”There are very few in Serbia today who can be satisfied with the results recorded by Serbia since” Milosevic’s overthrow, said Serbia’s current pro-Western president, Boris Tadic.
Marine scientists from South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) were part of a group of international scientists studying a female great white shark, which crossed the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia and back within a record-breaking 99 days, DEAT reported on Thursday.
Creditors of DRDGold’s North West operations, including organised labour, have approved the planned R45-million acquisition of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mines by listed mining group Simmer & Jack Mines, Simmers said on Thursday. The approval from creditors comes hours after permission from the Competition Commission was granted for the arrangement.
Trade union Solidarity said on Thursday that it had lodged a legal process against Nationwide Airlines by declaring a dispute with the airline at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. The trade union said in a statement that the airline had been charged with unfair discrimination and victimisation of its members.
Improved methods of blood doping being used on the Tour de France are almost impossible to detect, claims former United States Postal doctor Prentice Steffen. Steffen, who has hit out at under-fire Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, claims riders and their team doctors have got using the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) and blood doping down to a fine art.
An indigent burial support programme was needed to cope with the rising number of HIV/Aids deaths in South Africa, a researcher said on Thursday. Shirley Ngwenya, a public health researcher in Johannesburg, was addressing a Gauteng Aids conference at Gallagher Estate.
Alligators have clashed with pythons before in the United States’s Everglades National Park. But when a 1,8m gator tangled with a 3,9m python recently, the result wasn’t pretty. But when a 1,8m gator tangled with a 3,9m python recently, the result wasn’t pretty. The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole — and then exploded.
Harold Leventhal, a renowned folk-music promoter who worked with Woody Guthrie and introduced Bob Dylan in his first major concert-hall show, has died. He was 86. From the 1950s to the end of the 20th century, Leventhal was a champion of folk music who introduced audiences to both American and foreign artists.
Ten people were killed in a car bombing near the oil ministry in Baghdad in one of a spate of attacks on Thursday, adding to fears of spiralling violence in the run-up to the October 15 referendum on Iraq’s new Constitution. The bombings and shootings came a day after a bomb attack in the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad, killed 25 people.