The New National Party will disband at midnight after the results of the upcoming local government elections are declared, the party’s federal council resolved on Saturday. It is natural that not all members will support the NNP’s decision to disband. It is their right, NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk said.
Fear stalked the streets on Saturday in the squalid northern Angolan town of Uige, devastated by years of civil war and now the epicentre of an outbreak of the killer Marburg virus, which has claimed 180 lives so far. In Uige province alone, 160 people have been killed by the virus, which has claimed 98% of those infected in the outbreak.
A report to be published on Monday by the Institute of Race Relations, a London- based charity, suggests Britain is breaching the Geneva conventions by sending asylum seekers back to conflict zones. The government has started returning would-be refugees to the Democratic Republic of Congo and other conflict zones.
Adolf Hitler stands before the Nazi faithful at Nuremberg, exhorting them to realise the destiny of the thousand-year Reich. A familiar image in grainy black and white, this time the scene is played out in full colour, a legion of swastikas set on blood-red banners that Hitler described as having ”the effect of a burning torch”.
Commander Eileen Collins sat calmly in the cockpit of the space shuttle Discovery, the joystick gripped tightly in one hand. Around her, the craft shuddered and jolted. Discovery had just survived a catalogue of disasters, from failed computers to a navigation system gone haywire and a huge loss of power.
Once they were seen as the most loyal of all Europeans, but this week President Jacques Chirac faces one of the biggest battles of his political career as he launches a crusade to persuade the French to vote ”oui” in next month’s referendum on the European Union Constitution.
The high ranks of the Catholic clergy have looked at the crowds attending the late John Paul II’s funeral and wondered how to harness this energy for a church that, at least in Europe and the United States, has seen a dramatic and continuing decline in attendance and vocations.
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 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 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.