World soccer chief Sepp Blatter has hit out at English Premiership clubs over their attempts to prevent African players turning out for their countries in the African Nations Cup finals this month. Tottenham last week tried to persuade 12-goal Freddie Kanoute, born in France of Mali parents, from playing in Tunisia.
His remodelled BMW Williams stunned Juan Pablo Montoya at first, but the Colombian ace believes it will carry him to victory this year. ”I thought: ‘Where is the nose?’ And I said: ‘Are you sure this thing is going to work?”’ Montoya said, describing his shock at the smaller, lighter new Williams FW26, with its shorter nose.
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The Parmalat scandal deepened on Tuesday with Dutch regulators probing three subsidiaries and an investigator suggesting that the size of the bankrupt food group’s financial black hole was ”without limit”. The scandal now involves litigation in the United States and Italy.
South Africa’s opposition political party the Democratic Alliance wants the government to do away with the country’s current centralised national matriculation (senior certificate exam) system, according to DA MP and education spokesperson Willem Doman.
Someone turned in a valid winning ticket for a -million lottery jackpot, the Ohio Lottery said on Tuesday, a day after a Cleveland woman claimed she lost the ticket outside the store where it was sold. An Ohio Lottery spokesperson said the winner would be revealed at a morning news conference.
The South African government on Tuesday called a special media conference in which it again defended President Thabo Mbeki’s attendance at Haiti’s celebration of its independence bicentennial. It also criticised the media for spreading ”deliberate falsifications” about an alleged attack on the presidential contingent in Haiti.
Several villages in southwestern Iran were damaged on Tuesday when 11 mild earthquakes struck the area in quick succession, state radio reported. An official told state radio that successive tremors are ”a warning of a more powerful earthquake, and inhabitants of the area should be vigilant”.
Iran considers moving capital
Britain sought on Tuesday to allay fears about putting sky marshals on commercial airliners, saying it is a "responsible and prudent step" in the face of the threat of global terrorism. The British pilots’ union, Balpa, has recoiled at the plan, and the country’s biggest airline, British Airways, is also reported to be cool to the idea.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and other humanitarian agencies will this week launch the second phase of emergency aid distributions in northern Somalia, where tens of thousands of people are facing food shortages because of drought.