As expected, Springbok coach Jake White has named six players of colour in his starting line-up for Saturday’s crunch Mandela Challenge Test against the Wallabies at Ellis Park. He also named three more on the bench to bring the total number to nine in the match 22 — a record for the Boks in Tests.
Iraq’s Constitution, a key plank of the United States’s exit strategy, was in turmoil on Wednesday as Sunni members of the drafting committee walked out, Kurdish leaders said they could live without a deal, and women’s groups baulked at a proposal to give a strong role to Islamic law.
A retired Wall Street investment adviser on Wednesday described in the high court the moment Roman Polanski allegedly made a pass at his Norwegian girlfriend in a Manhattan restaurant by slipping his hand under the table and touching her leg. ”She arose and looked at me and said, ‘Ed, we’re leaving’,” Edward Perlberg told the jury.
Traces of magnesium found in household water could be sufficient to cause permanent brain damages to those who take a regular shower, according to a report published in the United States journal Medical Hypotheses. John Spangler and his team suggested that breathing in vapour containing manganese salts could be dangerous over the longer term.
Just days after announcing the end of their 10- year-marriage in June, bad-boy cricketer Shane Warne and wife Simone were snapped on a Spanish holiday buying up a storm in local boutiques. According to Stella Minahan, a researcher at Melbourne’s Deakin University, her fellow Australians were engaged in ”retail therapy” to help them forget their cares and woes.
Political intervention by the African National Congress seems to have steadied the volatile situation between warring Eastern Province Rugby officials and South African Rugby in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday. A joint statement by SA Rugby and the EP executive committee said the situation has been brought under control.
That television set in the corner really is an idiot box, New Zealand researchers have found. A 30-year study of more than 1 000 children has found that those who watch the most TV are least likely to go to university and get a degree. The seven percent of children who watched the box for under an hour daily were the most qualified by the time they were aged 26.
Veteran Laura Wilkinson and youngster Chip Peterson made sure the United States wouldn’t have to wait for the arrival of superstar Michael Phelps to strike gold at the 11th World Swimming Championships. Wilkinson won the women’s 10m platform diving and Peterson captured the men’s 10km open-water swimming title.
Two of Australia’s top women cyclists are still on life support after being hit by an out-of-control car that also killed teammate Amy Gillett in Germany this week, Cycling Australia (CA) said on Thursday. Three other injured cyclists are in a satisfactory condition, CA said.
Lance Armstrong’s teammates are doing a better job of beating him than his rivals are. Armstrong’s Discovery Channel teammate Paolo Savoldelli won Wednesday’s 17th stage of the Tour de France, three days after George Hincapie earned a stage victory of his own. Meanwhile, Armstrong has yet to win an individual stage so far.