The Johannesburg city council called a meeting for Monday afternoon after two girls were raped and a boy stabbed during an illegal mass ”celebration” at the city’s popular Zoo Lake parklands on Saturday.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is to press the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, tomorrow about the illegal supply of weapons to west Africa and Iraq.

Actor James Coburn, who took on the tough-guy role in such films as ”Our Man Flint” and ”The Magnificent Seven,” but whose anguished portrayal of an abusive father in ”Affliction” finally earned him an Oscar, died on Monday. He was 74.

Fresh slicks of black, viscous oil continued to wash up on to the beaches of north-west Spain yesterday as the fuel left behind by the sunken tanker Prestige began to spread south down the coast.

Throwing out a timely straw to drinkers drowning in a sea of festive booze, French researchers say they have devised a white wine with nearly all the much-hyped health benefits of red.

Spain yesterday ordered a scientific commission to find a way of raising or sealing off some 50 000 tons of fuel oil from the sunken tanker Prestige, as it confirmed the vessel would keep leaking the thick oil for more than three years.

On the day the latest Terminator film opened in Hollywood the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences threatened to use its ultimate weapon against members who break the rules in this year’s Oscar competition: miscreants will be expelled and their films disqualified.

ETHIOPIA on Monday reopened its border with Eritrea to a United Nations peacekeeping forces charged with monitoring a ceasefire in the region, UN officials said.

A FAMINE in southern Africa is worsening, experts say, with the United Nations warning that more than five million people will need emergency food aid. The Red Cross added that Aids was an exacerbating factor.