Thousands of people were left suffocating on Monday as a massive sandstorm brought life in the war-torn Iraqi capital to a virtual standstill. Nearly 1 000 cases of suffocation were reported at the city’s Yarmuk hospital, which saw one 60-year-old woman die. The capital’s main airport was also shut.
The Sudanese president has ordered an investigation into deadly riots that killed more than 130 people across Sudan in the days following the death of first Vice President John Garang in a helicopter crash, state media reported on Monday. The investigation team is to report back to the president within two weeks.
A new primary school built to replace that destroyed in the Beslan school hostage massacre last year has been robbed, with thieves stealing computers, printers and televisions worth around €5 000 ( 200), officials said on Monday.
Books about boy wizard Harry Potter have become favorite reading material among Islamic terror suspects at the United States detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, <i>The Washington Times</i> reported on Monday. "We’ve got a few who are kind of hooked on it," said a librarian working at the centre.
Despite meetings this weekend requesting him to stay on, Andre Markgraaff confirmed on Monday that his tempestuous relationship with South African rugby is finally over. ”My phone has been ringing non-stop … trying to get me to change my mind, but my mind is made up,” Markgraaff said.
This year is set to be one of the worst on record for hurricanes, scientists say, amid spectacular new evidence about the power of these storms and fears that global warming is intensifying them. Experts are warning that the brooding western Atlantic may serve up as many as 21 severe storms and hurricanes this year.
The voices that hallucinating people claim to hear are almost always of males, the Munich-based medical newspaper Aerztliche Praxis (Medical Practice) reported. Citing studies by researchers at the University of Sheffield, the report said that the reason for this phenomenon may lie in the different qualities of sound characteristic of male and female voices.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has ruled out talks with Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main opposition party Movement for Democratic Change. ”No sir, I don’t want to meet you,” he told thousands gathered in Harare’s Heroes’ Acre, a shrine to those killed during the country’s independence war.
The death toll from Typhoon Matsa that ripped through eastern China rose to 10 on Monday with seven of the casualties reported in Shanghai, state media said. Matsa slammed into coastal areas over the weekend, tearing up roads, reservoirs and houses, causing -million of damage in China’s glitziest city, Shanghai, alone.
Intensive security measures were in place in KwaDukuza on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast on Monday after taxis were forced to stop all operations at midnight on Sunday. This comes after a tribunal was set up to look into the violence between rival taxi associations in which 14 people have died in the past two months.