At least 48 people died when a leisure boat with at least 150 passengers on board sank off the coast of Bahrain late on Thursday as the coast guard and the United States Navy worked frantically to rescue survivors. There were 10 South Africans on board. ”The number of survivors is 63, of which 12 were wounded, and the number of bodies that we have pulled out so far is 48,” said Colonel Yussef al-Ghatim.
Fernando Alonso warned on Sunday that he is in no mood to give up his world driver’s crown without a fight by beating Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso made use of a perfect strategy from his Renault team to win by 1,2 seconds from pole-sitter Schumacher.
Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher showed his return to form when he stormed to a Ferrari 1-2 to take pole position for Sunday’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Schumacher, who had a disappointing 2005 season, equalled the late Ayrton Senna’s record of 65 pole positions on Saturday.
Ferrari suffered a weekend to forget in the stifling heat of the Bahrain desert on Sunday when they failed to score a point on the debut of their new F2005 car in the Bahrain Grand Prix. It was the first time they had failed to score a point in 33 races stretching back two years to April 2003.
World championship leader Fernando Alonso set a sizzling pace in the roasting desert heat in Manama on Saturday to claim the fastest time in first qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. World champion Michael Schumacher prepared the new Ferrari for its race debut on Sunday by finishing third fastest.
A nationwide power failure on Monday left Bahrainis snarled in rush-hour traffic and without air conditioning on a day when temperatures reached the mid-fifties degrees Celsius. The United States Navy switched to generator power. A spokesperson for the electricity department blamed a ”technical fault”.
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/ 13 December 2003
A television company is to broadcast a Big Brother-style reality television show for Arab countries in which young women compete to win an arranged marriage. The eight women chosen will live together in a house watched over by TV cameras.