The world looks beautiful from the summit of the Premier Soccer League table for Orlando Pirates as they survey all around them at this stage of the season. For Pirates, their 13-game unbeaten run in the Premier Soccer League has raised hopes of wrestling the championship title from arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs.
As the clear-up from the Asian tsunami starts and the full damage is assessed, there is growing consensus among scientists, environmentalists and Asian fishing communities that the impact was considerably worsened by tourist, shrimp farm and other industrial developments that have destroyed or degraded mangrove forests and other natural sea defences.
The Football League has volunteered to be used as a ”guinea pig” for goal line technology that, if successful, could be implemented throughout the world. Rather than video evidence, the scheme would involve using a specially created ball fitted with a microchip that bleeps whenever it crosses the line.
There cannot be many babies named after disasters, but then there cannot be many babies that nature has thrown so totally on the comfort of strangers as 20-day-old Wave. In his short life, the Thai boy has escaped a tsunami that appears to have killed his parents and the poverty that forced his carer to abandon him three days later.
In Agege, a suburb of Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, Augusta Uyi-Evbuomwam has become indispensable. From dawn until dusk, people carrying buckets and jerry cans queue to buy water from her borehole. Uyi-Evbuomwam claims she dare not close shop for even a day, as the entire neighbourhood would be left without water. ”It is more than a business, it is a service. People are begging me to sell water to them,” she says.
”As preparations for the grand prix season get under way, allegations that Bernie Ecclestone treats formula one like his personal Scalextric set are confirmed when he forgets to pack away all the drivers and his mother hoovers up Juan Pablo Montoya.” Harry Pearson gazes into his crystal ball and decides what won’t happen in sport this year.
Premiership managers are fending off agents as the amount of business done during the current transfer window struggles to match the speculation. It feels quite like old times. The papers suddenly look more like themselves, and the court circular of King Lear, as they muse on who is in and who is out.
She survived the tsunami, only to suffer the inhumanity of her rescuer. The young woman was accompanying her family on a pilgrimage when the tunami hit. The journey was to seek protection. Instead, she nearly drowned, and was then raped. ”He told me to grab his hand, that he will save me,” said the 18-year-old girl, who asked not to be named for fear of being ostracised by her village.
Less than a month after taking office, Guinea’s new Prime Minister has begun to woo western donors and opposition parties at home by pledging more transparency in government and the lifting of a ban on private radio stations. A fast depreciating Guinean franc has meant importing rice, now selling for per 50kg bag — more than many Guineans earn in a month.
Deutsche Börse’s attempt to take over the London Stock Exchange (LSE) faced fresh difficulties on Thursday when German politicians and bankers demanded a Frankfurt head office for the combined entity. It emerged that the German government has raised objections about any offer to move the head office to London.