It is back to the judiciary we go again on the moral mess that is football. Soon we will find something to talk about other than Chelsea and Jose Mourinho (not that he minds) but, for the time being, they remain at the centre of the most important debate in football since the start of the Premiership in 1992.
The Marburg virus has reached a fourth province in Angola, bringing the nationwide toll from the Ebola-like disease to 130, Angola’s health ministry and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. The official death toll from the disease had stood at 126 on Thursday, since the worst global outbreak of the virus started six months ago.
Thousands of people packed St Peter’s Square on Friday as Pope John Paul II’s health deteriorated. They prayed and gazed up at his third-floor window in a quiet vigil repeated in churches around the world. In South Africa, Catholics were praying for a peaceful end for the pope and churches were preparing special masses.
Ms Wheelchair Wisconsin has been stripped of her title because pageant officials say she can stand — and point to a newspaper picture as proof. Janeal Lee, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a scooter, was snapped by The Post-Crescent newspaper standing among her high school maths students.
The religious groups that had pleaded with government officials to keep a severely brain-damaged woman alive in Florida are now vowing to push for stricter legal standards when it comes to denying life-sustaining measures to ailing patients. They believe Schiavo’s death could spark off a moral tsunami engulfing other families in similar situations.
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An elections observer mission from a key regional grouping raised concerns on Friday over the number of people who were turned away from polling stations during voting in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an elections monitoring group, said it estimated that 25% of voters had been turned away from the polls nationwide.
Solutions to Africa’s problems will work only if they reflect the will of the continent’s people, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Writing in the African National Congress’s online publication, ANC Today, Mbeki said the Pan African Parliament confirms the determination of the peoples of Africa to promote and achieve continental unity.
The death toll on earthquake-hit islands in north-west Indonesia soared to an estimated 1 300 on Friday as panic that another disaster was imminent sent thousands of people fleeing for hills. Foreign rescue teams continued hunting for people still alive beneath the debris although hopes were ebbing away.
Stewart Butterfield launched Flickr, the online photo-sharing system, somewhat quietly at last year’s Emerging Technology conference in San Diego, California. One year later, at the same show, Flickr is running on almost everybody’s laptop, Butterfield has become a star and, we suspect, a multimillionaire.
A refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo was killed and three other people were wounded by a South African United Nations peacekeeper during a food riot at a camp in Burundi, officials said Friday. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees , which runs the camp, condemned the incident but said details were still being investigated.