Rafael Nadal needed 20 minutes and five match points on Wednesday finally to dispose of Robin Soderling 6-4 6-4 6-7 4-6 7-5 in a rain-hit Wimbledon third round match that spanned three days. The players resumed at 4-4 in the final set in a match that started on Monday and was hit by five rain breaks, with only 20 minutes of play possible on Tuesday.
Progress in getting the National Lottery restarted has passed a ”major milestone”, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Wednesday. Only ”shoe-shine work” remained to be done, although there was no date yet for when the lottery would resume, he told reporters in Pretoria.
It pays to get up early in a country where even the most basic goods are disappearing from shop shelves. Long queues of shoppers now form early in the morning at many Harare supermarkets and shops, hoping to grab essentials such as sugar and oil amid a price crisis that has sharpened already desperate consumer shortages.
The drive towards forging a United States of Africa was running out of steam on Wednesday as leaders filed away from a summit without agreeing on a timeline for creating a new government for the continent. The three-day African Union summit in Ghana was devoted to a grand debate on a union government with burning issues such as Darfur barely getting a look in.
Europe’s major consumer group BEUC said on Wednesday that it fears internet search giant Google’s takeover of online ad tracker DoubleClick would damage European Union privacy rights and limit consumers’ choice of web content. The association has asked European authorities to look into privacy concerns.
Thousands of Palestinian civil servants began receiving their first full salaries in 17 months on Wednesday after Israel released tens of millions of dollars of withheld tax receipts. Relieved Palestinians queued en masse outside banks, checking their names on a list or drawing cash from ATM machines.
After a three-month break the trial of a British aristocrat charged with murder in the shooting of a trespasser on his ancestral ranch resumed in Nairobi on Wednesday. Thomas Cholmondeley, son of the fifth Baron Delamere and great-grandson of Kenya’s most prominent early settler, is charged with killing poacher Robert Njoya in May 2006.
The tense relations between South Africa and Tri-Nations partners Australia and New Zealand will be raised at a meeting among the three unions next week. The Sanzar body that runs the Tri-Nations and Super 14 will meet in Christchurch for a strategic review addressing the future of both competitions, reported the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday.
The great-great grandson of Otto von Bismarck, the statesman behind Germany’s 19th century unification, was found dead at his London flat, police said on Wednesday, after a life tainted by scandal. The body of Count Gottfried von Bismarck (44) was found at his home in the upmarket Chelsea district, reportedly surrounded by drugs paraphernalia.
Though alleged killer Najwa Petersen was reportedly suicidal, there was no evidence that being in prison would increase the risk, a forensic psychiatrist told the Wynberg Regional Court on Wednesday. Dr Larissa Panieri-Peter was testifying in a bail application by Najwa, accused of masterminding the murder of her husband, entertainer Taliep Petersen, last year.