Shaun Pollock took 4-18 and Boeta Dippenaar and Mark Boucher hit half-centuries as South Africa beat a Jamaica XI by 29 runs in a warm up on Thursday for the one-day series against the West Indies. Dippenaar, who opened the batting, was the top scorer with 64 after South Africa won the toss and reached 245 off 50 overs.
Pixar Animation Studios more than tripled its earnings in the first quarter on strong DVD sales of its Oscar-winning film The Incredibles. The computer animation company reported net income of ,9-million, or 67 cents a share in the quarter ended April 2, compared to ,7-million, or 23 cents a share in the same period last year.
Scores of Sudanese gathered on Thursday in front of a courthouse to demand a death sentence for the editor of a daily newspaper who is accused of insulting Islam’s prophet. Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, editor of the independent and pro-Islamist Al Wifaq, is standing trial for republishing an article from the internet that questioned the parentage of the Prophet Muhammad.
Nearly six years after Nasa’s Mars Polar Lander vanished during a landing attempt on the Red Planet, a scientist said he has spotted what appears to be wreckage of the spacecraft. The observation came during a re-examination of grainy, black-and-white images taken by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor.
An aluminium police baton wielded by the leader of a New Zealand police riot squad during mass demonstrations against a South African rugby tour in 1981 has been sold at an auction for more than NZ 000 (Â 600), it was announced on Friday.
The Dida Galgalu desert is a good place to hide. Perennial drought and famine extract their daily toll here, where warring nomadic tribes battle over livestock and shifta (bandits) prowl the dead land in search of bounty from the odd supply lorry that chances over the twisted network of rough tracks.
Support for claims of unacceptably high radiation levels at an old nuclear calibration site near Pelindaba has come from an unexpected quarter: the government’s Land Claims Commission. Green activist lobby Earthlife Africa triggered a public debate last week when it claimed there were high levels of radiation at the site, a kilometre from Pelindaba.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has reopened the bitter debate about the efficiency of anti-retroviral drugs and defended the work of controversial vitamin therapist Dr Matthias Rath. Rath has questioned the safety of anti-retrovirals and recommended the use of vitamins and micronutrients to treat HIV-positive people.
The commission appointed by President Thabo Mbeki to probe the future of the Scorpions is set to begin work in earnest. Judge Sisi Khampepe, appointed in March to head the commission, on Thursday issued a call for submissions by way of sworn affidavit. Submissions must reach the commission by June 17 2005 and must identify confidential or classified elements in the representations.
Efforts by Zimbabwe’s banned Daily News newspaper to get back on the streets hit another snag on Thursday when the paper was told to provide more details before it can receive a licence from the state media commission, an executive for the paper said.