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/ 2 September 2004
Hurricane Frances lashed the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas as it barrelled toward Florida, where authorities have declared a state of emergency, ordered evacuations and closed schools. In Palm Beach county, 300 000 residents were told to evacuate their homes by Thursday afternoon.
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/ 2 September 2004
Rescuers have pulled five bodies from the rubble of a construction accident in Uganda and were scrambling on Thursday to save more still trapped alive a day after a three-storey building collapsed on them. Workers had been on every floor when the building collapsed on Wednesday morning, witnesses said.
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/ 2 September 2004
Convicted serial child rapist Fanwell Khumalo failed on Thursday in his bid to have his conviction and jail sentence overturned. Khumalo unsuccessfully applied for leave to appeal in the Johannesburg High Court against his conviction and sentence of 42 life terms and more than 270 years in jail.
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/ 2 September 2004
Oil prices bubbled higher on Thursday on fears of supply disruptions in the United States from a hurricane headed for Florida, a day after surging in the latest leg of a roller-coaster ride, traders said. The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October rose by seven cents to ,53 a barrel in early trading in London.
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/ 2 September 2004
Angry crowds denounced the United States as they mourned the victims on Thursday of a US air strike on an alleged militant safehouse in Fallujah that killed 20 people. Meanwhile, French envoys were planning to hold crisis talks on Thursday in Iraq and Jordan in a desperate bid to free two journalists seized by militants.
US air strike on Fallujah kills 20
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/ 2 September 2004
A man shot dead his girlfriend, a 31-year-old schoolteacher, before committing suicide at the Newlands East Secondary School in Durban on Thursday. Police said the 35-year-old man went to the teacher’s classroom on Thursday morning, called her outside and shot her in the head before turning the gun on himself.
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/ 2 September 2004
A special initiative to rid Africa of vast stockpiles of poisonous, obsolete chemical pesticides posing serious health risks has been launched by the African Stockpiles Programme (ASP). ASP plans to get rid of an estimated 50 000 tons of toxic pesticides and waste, as well as tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil.
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/ 2 September 2004
Spanish women are the longest living group of people in Europe, according to figures from the EU’s Eurostat department. They live to an average age of 83,7, three years longer than women in Britain, whose average is 80,7 years. Men in Britain live to 76,2 years on average.
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/ 2 September 2004
It looks like 2004 is going to be a bumper year for the South African motor industry — reflecting the strength of consumer and business spending at the moment, which is likely to continue. The motor industry produced another excellent sales month in August, exceeding sales during the same month last year by 18,8%.
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/ 2 September 2004
Charles Jenkins (64) an American soldier accused of defecting to North Korea nearly 40 years ago, said on Wednesday he would soon give himself up to United States military authorities. ”I will soon voluntarily face the charges that have been filed against me by the US army,” he said in a statement from Japan, where he now lives with his Japanese wife and two daughters.