The Blues continued their rugby resurgence in the Super 12 with a 23-6 win over the Cats in Auckland on Saturday. After their impressive win over the defending champions Brumbies last week, the Blues posted their fourth win, pushing them closer to semifinal contention. They now lie in sixth place on 16 points, three adrift of the Brumbies, and seven short of the fourth placed Highlanders.
The Chiefs left the Sharks floundering in Hamilton on Saturday and hammered the South Africans 40-5 in their Super 12 rugby match. The Chiefs scored six tries and posted their second win of the season to lift themselves off the bottom of the table. While the Sharks shored up their defence after the break, they rarely threatened and were rewarded with just a solitary late try to Jaco Gouws.
The Masters is all about tradition. The returning champions. The Crow’s Nest. The Hogan Bridge. Well, there’s one tradition those guys in the green jackets would gladly abandon. Bad weather. In what has become a mud-stained rite of spring, the pristine grounds of Augusta National were a gooey mess, the opening major of the year totally out of whack after two days of thunderstorms.
The United States’s media coverage of Africa over the past decade is anything but fair and balanced — and focuses overwhelmingly on the negative, former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano said on Friday. ”Coverage of Africa, by the leading forces of American media, is, at best, dismissive of the continent’s progress and potential,” he said.
There are six gleaming clocks on the wall of the call centre, telling the time in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, New York, London and Nairobi. The last is the biggest surprise. Despite the potential hazards of power cuts, corruption and lousy telephone lines, Kenya’s first international call centre is eager to steal a slice of the action from Bangalore.
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Two British journalists arrested for working without accreditation in Zimbabwe are bracing for jail terms of up to two years if found guilty at a trial expected to conclude next week. Some experts say the two may be fined and deported immediately from Zimbabwe, but others warn that the authorities might seek to make an example of them.
It boasts alliteration but the concept seems fanciful: beautiful Baghdad. Iraq’s capital is famous for violence, degradation, occupation and blackouts, not aesthetic appeal. Everywhere there are concrete blast barriers, sandbags and razor wire. Rubbish lines streets which are sometimes ankle-deep in sewage.
The final commendation is meant to be the solemn climax of a Requiem Mass. But as the first cardinals processed towards John Paul II’s coffin to line up four deep on either side and melodiously solicit prayers for his soul, they were greeted with a storm of applause.
A popular clamour for Pope John Paul II to be quickly canonized as a Catholic saint erupted in St. Peter’s Square on Friday toward the end of the funeral mass for the pontiff. The crowd chanted ”santo, santo” over and again, briefly holding up the ceremony, and some people held up large banners demanding the quick canonisation of the late pope.
A briefing to the Pan African Parliament on progress made with the continent’s development plan and peer review system was postponed on Friday to the body’s next sitting later this year. The briefing was cancelled on account of the unavailability of Wiseman Nkhuhlu — chief executive officer of the secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.