The classroom erupted in delighted cheers at the teacher’s vigorous thrusts into a toilet bowl. The plunger-wielding ”professor” from Japan, Atsuhiro Katsumata, was in Singapore to help the city-state’s toilet cleaners brush up their skills. Singapore, it seems, has yet to take its seat among the ranks of those with the most sparkling urinals.
Legendary television producer Aaron Spelling, who launched a string of star-making global hits such as Dynasty, Charlie’s Angels and Beverly Hills 90210, died following a stroke on Friday. He was 83. Spelling had produced about 200 television shows from the 1960s to date.
The death toll from floods and landslides in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province neared 250 on Saturday with another 100 still missing and thousands homeless, police and officials said. The disaster is the latest tragedy to afflict the world’s fourth-most-populous nation in the past few years.
Prosecuting masterminds of the Rwandan genocide has so far cost about €820-million. Twenty-eight sentences have been handed down to date. Should the ICTR achieve its goal of concluding 70 trials by the end of 2008, each trial will have cost on average at least €12-million.
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For a team nicknamed the Black Stars, Ghana have certainly produced the brightest note for Africa at the World Cup finals. The debutants have finally confirmed the talent that has been seen in many of their youth teams down the years but never been replicated on the world stage.
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Long before the first football was kicked at the World Cup earlier this month in Germany, hard-line Islamists were busily denouncing the massive competition as a corrupt show of Western influence. But as the daily matches have gone on, Islamists using the internet have shown they are not immune to World Cup fever.
Wing Wylie Human got a hat-trick of tries for the Lions but his side ended up with a single bonus-point reward for their efforts in their opening Absa Currie Cup rugby match in Durban on Friday night as the Natal Sharks claimed the spoils for a 33-22 victory and a bonus point for four tries.
The Blue Bulls were lucky to scrape home 18-16 against a motivated Falcons side in a game on a cold and bitter evening at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night. The Bulls struggled in a second-half performance that must go down as one of the worst in years as the Falcons stormed back in the game.
Another Ali is going to fight in Africa. Nearly 32 years after Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the ”Rumble in the Jungle”, his daughter, Laila, plans to fight this summer in Cape Town, South Africa. ”There’s a lot of love for Ali in South Africa,” she said on Friday. ”I’m following in my dad’s footsteps.”
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Switzerland and France rounded off the last 16 in the World Cup finals in Germany on Friday as they recorded 2-0 victories over South Korea and Togo respectively. The Swiss will play Ukraine, while the French face a tough battle with in-form Spain for a place in the last eight.