Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s plane was fired on as it took off on Friday from a military airfield in Rawalpindi, an intelligence officer said, contradicting official denials. Musharraf’s plane arrived safely in the south-western town of Turbat, where the president visited flood victims, and the military denied there had been any attack.
In a quiz, which its purveyors sell as ”a quiz for people who know everything”, contestants are asked to name the one spectator sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends. Lo and behold, the answer is not local football.
The JSE was lacklustre on Friday, still following overseas markets. The rand was a tad softer at midday, which helped give a slight boost to the market. Traders said there was buying interest in metals counters, especially BHP Billiton shares, as well as banks.
As Wimbledon entered its second week, the overriding feeling was of a tournament stubbornly refusing to catch fire. Obviously the poor weather and the fractured nature of almost every day’s play has contributed to a general feeling of dissatisfaction, although that has not been the sole reason for the damp blanket of ennui.
Ask Scotland’s David Coulthard about his first British Grand Prix at Silverstone and his brow flickers slightly with exasperation. He had a spectacular 272km/h spin at Bridge corner preparing for the 1994 race, but that was topped for embarrassment when he twice stalled his Williams-Renault on the grid and was moved to the back after failing to get away at the start of the second formation lap.
Spare a thought this weekend for Michelle Wie and Freddy Adu. Rarely can two athletes of such immense promise have fallen so quickly on to the hard rocks of reality. Both are kids still and, in their respective disciplines, golf and football, capable of wonderful individual moments.
Italy defender Marco Materazzi is taking legal action against three British newspapers over their reporting of the incident in last July’s World Cup final when he clashed with Zinedine Zidane, the BBC reported on Thursday. Zidane responded to verbal provocation by Materazzi by headbutting him to the ground.
Striking Vodacom employees were outraged that the company had blocked their cellphones, the Communication Workers Union said on Friday. The company said it was employing a ”no work, no pay, and no benefits” policy. Vodacom spokesperson Dot Field said the cellphones were not blocked and the workers were free to insert their own SIM cards into the handsets.
At least 20 children have died from a diarrhoea outbreak in a Zimbabwe mining town after drinking suspected contaminated water, official media reported on Friday. The Herald newspaper said the children were from the mining town of Kadoma, about 140km west of Harare.
Three Ekurhuleni metro policemen want a court order to ensure that metro police officers and chief Robert McBride do not come within 100m of them. The three — Stanley Segathevan, Patrick Johnstone and Ithumeleng Koko — were at the scene of an accident McBride was involved in last year, when he was allegedly intoxicated.