A Nasa spacecraft blasted off on Friday into a golden early-morning sky, beginning a mission to Mars to gather more data on the Red Planet than all combined previous missions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter lifted off on an Atlas V rocket on a seven-month journey to Mars.
Zimbabwean lawyers on Friday braced for a fight with the state over proposed constitutional changes published by the Zimbabwean government last month and aimed at barring white farmers from challenging land grabs in court and preventing people deemed anti-government from going overseas.
Anglo American and Old Mutual have both received a political pat on the back by President Thabo Mbeki for their black economic empowerment initiatives. In his regular internet column, <i>ANC Today</i>, Mbeki added that the country has taken the decision to realise the goal for a better life for all.
Increasing numbers of exiles are returning to Burundi, as confidence seems to be growing that peace has returned to their homeland, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. Last week alone, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees helped 4 200 Burundians go home from Tanzania and Rwanda.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has announced the formation of a new extra-parliamentary movement with social groupings and civil society organisations to agitate for economic reforms favouring the poor. Fashioned after the United Democratic Front of old, the movement will be launched in Cape Town on August 22.
Park officials have recently discovered a nearly 120m waterfall in a remote corner of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, 17Â 400ha of wilderness in northern California. That such a spectacle should evade even park officials for nearly 40 years is remarkable, said park superintendent Jim Milestone.
Suspended Inkatha Freedom Party chairperson Doctor Ziba Jiyane resigned from the party on Thursday. On Friday, his personal assistant, Phumlani Khuzwayo, said Jiyane will make an announcement on his political future in Durban on Saturday. ”Reports that Jiyane is going to start a new political party are all false,” said Khuzwayo.
Originally marketed for medical students, a life-sized skeleton paper doll has proved a hit in Japan among people who have time on their hands and want to piece together the human body. Like a human, "Bony" has about 200 bones and it takes a grown-up three days to finish reconstructing the doll.
A French amateur psychic’s powers of prediction were under sharp scrutiny after his crystal ball started an inferno that burnt out his flat, a British newspaper reported on Friday. The fortune-telling device caused a fire that destroyed two other flats and rendered several more uninhabitable, <i>The Times</i> said.
Known for his trademark cap and greying moustache, Ibrahim Ferrer who achieved fame as the singer of the Buena Vista Social Club, died last Saturday in Havana at the age of 78, writes David Teather.