A group that has been holding a United States marine hostage for more than a week has beheaded the soldier and will soon release a video showing the murder, the group announced in a message posted on Arabic websites on Saturday. US military officials are checking the report, but could not confirm that it was accurate, reports said.
Sex between men is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka and lesbianism has been officially labelled ”sadism”, but the island’s gays believe their long fight for equality is picking up pace amid regional moves to legalise homosexuality. Sri Lanka’s penal code is a legacy from British colonial rulers.
Marine archaeologists have recovered thousands of artefacts believed to date back to the Ming dynasty from a 400-year-old shipwreck in Malaysian waters, local media said on Sunday. More than 6 000 pieces of porcelain were salvaged from the wreck off the eastern Terengganu state.
An elderly Australian on Sunday backed up Lindy Chamberlain’s claim that a dingo took her baby when she was camping 24 years ago at what was then called Ayers Rock. Frank Cole (78) told the Herald Sun newspaper that he shot the dingo that took Azaria and that it still had the infant’s body in its mouth when it died.
The way the Eastern Cape provincial government spent its health budget has significantly contributed to the health-care crisis in the province, a new book demonstrates. Key findings include that more than 81% of the provincial health department’s budget from 1996 to 2003 was not properly accounted for.
Warders at the medium-security prison and the C-Max prison in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal, as well as warders at St Alban’s prison outside Port Elizabeth, have embarked on a strike, SABC Radio News reported on Saturday. The warders were reportedly demonstrating outside the prisons.
Two years after it replaced the much-maligned and ineffective Organisation of African Unity, the African Union seems much more determined to tackle the continent’s crises, but has one major problem: money. During the AU’s third ordinary summit, a strategic plan for the coming three years will be unveiled.
The plight of Southern Africa’s earliest inhabitants, the San Bushmen, comes to the fore on Monday when Botswana’s High Court begins hearing a landmark land case in the Kalahari desert. A group of 243 San Bushmen are challenging their resettlement from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world’s largest sanctuaries.
Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter said the result could have been bigger had his strikers converted most of the chances they created after his charge’s 2-0 win over Burkina Faso at the FNB Stadium on Saturday. ”It could have been a different game as well if we had scored four of the 15 chances we created in the first half,” he said.
Comfortable win for Bafana Bafana
New Zealand all but booked themselves a place in the NatWest Series final with a five-wicket win against the West Indies at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Saturday. Only a freak combination of results can now deny Stephen Fleming’s men a place in the July 10 Lord’s showpiece of this one-day international triangular event.