The video images are grainy but the effect is chilling. A man in a black T-shirt calmly crosses the Raja restaurant in Bali, where friends and family are eating, drinking and chatting away, enjoying a festive Saturday night out. He walks back toward the kitchen, and then comes the boom of an explosion. And then there are screams and panic.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is due to reply to submissions made on Monday arguing for the Khampepe commission into the future of the Scorpions to be open to the public. The commission, headed by Judge Sisi Khampepe and appointed by President Thabo Mbeki in March, is sitting in Pretoria.
Britain is give all school pupils lessons in cooking healthy meals as part of attempts to tackle an epidemic of obesity in young people. All senior school pupils aged 11 to 14 will receive practical cooking lessons and learn about the importance of a balanced diet, food safety and hygiene, the education department said.
At least 34 miners were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s central province of Henan on Monday, local officials and state media reported, in yet another disaster to blight the beleaguered industry. The blast occurred around dawn in a pit belonging to the Henan Hebi Coal company, a large state-run enterprise in the north of the province.
Australians Barry J Marshall and Robin Warren have won the 2005 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their work on how the bacterium Helicobacter pylori plays a role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. The coveted award honouring achievements in medical research opened this year’s series of prize announcements.
Police in Africa’s last absolute kingdom of Swaziland vowed on Monday to find those responsible for two firebomb attacks branded as terrorism and linked to a banned opposition party. A courthouse in Mbabane and the home of a government spokesperson was firebombed in two separate attacks on Friday.
Nuclear science may not be considered ideal subject matter for a popular song, but the musical boffins in Iran’s state media apparatus think differently. Iran’s airwaves have been buzzing with two new tunes apparently designed to rally public support for the country’s tense stand-off with the West over its nuclear ambitions.
Ethiopia’s main opposition parties said on Monday that preliminary talks with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi aimed at defusing tensions in the wake of controversial elections were cordial and fruitful. The talks focused on the opposition’s differences with the government over charges that the ruling EPRDF Party fraudulently won the country’s mid-May elections.
Nampak, Africa’s largest packaging company, is making positive progress towards the development of its permanent cartons manufacturing facility in Nigeria, with the plant scheduled to open at the end of next year. A temporary installation is
already up and running.
South Africa’s men and women’s hockey teams won easily on Sunday on day two of the African Cup of Nations hockey tournament at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria. The women crushed Namibia 9-0, with Western Province’s Kate Hector scoring a fine hat-trick.