International athletics newcomer Jeremy Wariner succeeded United States great Michael Johnson as Olympic 400m champion on Monday as the US became the first nation since 1992 to sweep the medals in an athletics event. In gymnastics, fans’ frustration with judging sparked a shout-fest that briefly brought the proceedings to a halt.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
South African tennis veteran Wayne Ferreira, due to retire from the sport next month, scrambled to a 6-2, 6-3 win over Spaniard David Sanchez on Monday to reach the second round of the 000 ATP Long Island event. The South African will wrap up his career after the US Open and a final Davis Cup appearance.
Finnish police said on Monday they were investigating a large-scale art fraud in which dozens of high-quality photocopies of works by artists such as Salvador Dalí were passed off as originals and sold for up to 10 000 euros each. Helsinki police said their prime suspect was the organiser of an exhibition in the Finnish capital that claimed to display original works by Dalí and such other famous artists as Chagall, Rembrandt, Picasso and Andy Warhol.
Osama bin Laden’s Yemeni driver will on Tuesday become the first Guantánamo Bay prisoner to stand before a United States military commission to face war crimes charges, in proceedings that have been denounced as unfair by human rights groups and American military lawyers.
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A French air-force fighter jet collided with an ultralight aircraft over central on France Monday, killing its two occupants, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. The Mirage 200 N was on a training flight over the city of Clermont-Ferrand when it hit the ultralight, a small, low-flying recreational plane resembling a paraglider.
A nationwide power failure on Monday left Bahrainis snarled in rush-hour traffic and without air conditioning on a day when temperatures reached the mid-fifties degrees Celsius. The United States Navy switched to generator power. A spokesperson for the electricity department blamed a ”technical fault”.
Experts say the future of the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been guaranteed for the next 300 years. Speaking two years after the completion of renovation works aimed at straightening up the 800-year-old landmark, Professor Carlo Viggiani of Naples University has told reporters ”the tower is definitely safe”.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) denied on Monday allegations of financial irregularities made by the head of its finance and administration department. A report in the Sunday Independent newspaper claimed the commission ”suspended a whistle-blower within its own ranks”.
The Pretoria High Court has — with ”no hesitation” — set aside rightwinger Eugene Terre’Blanche’s warrant of arrest and has told the Department of Correctional Services to release him from Potchefstroom prison immediately, following his arrest on Saturday for an alleged parole violation.