Jenson Button’s BAR Honda team were on Thursday banned from competing in the next two grands prix after being found guilty of ”highly regrettable negligence” at last month’s race in San Marino. The verdict falls way short of the season-long ban called for by motor racing’s governing body, the International Automobile Federation.
Thousands of journalists in some of the most press-hostile countries held marches and sit-ins on Tuesday to demand an end to government censorship and jailings and to highlight the threat of killing, kidnapping and other abuses they face.
Several events were under way or scheduled for the 15th annual World Press Freedom Day.
An air of change is pervading the European peloton ahead of this year’s big rendez-vous, when Lance Armstrong puts his yellow jersey up for grabs in his last ever race. The Tour de France is set to provide drama of epic proportions when the 33-year-old American puts his champion’s credentials on the line in July.
Insect experts are at odds over plans to name three newly discovered species of slime-mould beetle after United States President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The guardians of animal nomenclature fear the slimy monikers may be a godsend for satirists, <i>New Scientist</i> reports.
Sometimes, goes the old joke, I wake up grumpy. At other times, I let him sleep. Grumpy need never wake up anything less than refreshed, thanks to a futuristic alarm clock that monitors sleep patterns and waits for the sleeper to be in the best possible phase before rousing him or her.
Tributes flooded in from around Europe for Monaco’s Prince Rainier III, who died on Wednesday. French President Jacques Chirac hailed the prince’s ”courage and tenacity” in the face of his failing health. In a message of condolence to Rainier’s successor, Prince Albert, Chirac praised Rainier for helping to modernise once-sleepy Monaco.
Those who say eclipses herald history-shaping events will find support for their superstition when, on Friday, the sun will be briefly plunged into darkness on the day of Pope John Paul II’s funeral. Astronomers, though, say the eclipse is simply part of a ballet in celestial physics between the sun, Earth and moon.
The tourists streaming through the Louvre in quest of the Mona Lisa will look in vain this coming Monday in the pink room, where she has traditionally been housed. Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, also known as La Giaconda, has a new home in the renovated Salle des Etats, about 150m away in the famous Paris museum.
Any visitor to France who thinks the country’s drivers are pushy, rude and prone to parking wherever their cars might conceivably fit had confirmation from an unlikely source this week — the drivers themselves. According to a recent survey, six out of 10 French drivers believe their fellow motorists are impolite and aggressive behind the wheel.
A British institution will this week rubbish France’s perennial claim that its unique soil and climatic conditions are responsible for producing some of the world’s finest wines. Two economists have concluded that environmental conditions are not important when it comes to producing memorable wine.
Newcastle manager Graeme Souness was cautiously optimistic about Wednesday’s Uefa Cup match at home to Olympiakos, especially as his side have not lost a single match in Europe this season. Following the 3-1, last 16, first-leg win, Souness said: ”I have been in professional football 37 years and nothing is over until it is over.”
The English Premier League will have two flag-carriers in the quarterfinals of the Champions League after Liverpool coasted to a 3-1 victory over Bayer Leverkusen in their knockout round second-leg match on Wednesday. But another English Premier League side, Arsenal, failed to overcome a 3-1 away defeat to former winners Bayern Munich in Germany.
A controversial header late in the second half by Chelsea captain John Terry gave the Premiership leaders a remarkable 4-2 win over Barcelona in their Champions League first knockout-round clash on Tuesday. Elsewhere, the dream of Sir Alex Ferguson to give Manchester United a second Champions League title under his stewardship ended — perhaps for good.
Parisians are confident of seducing the 13-strong International Olympic Committee evaluation commission who arrived in Paris on Tuesday to evaluate the French capital’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said.
Arsenal will need to pull off a first-class performance, as Monaco and Deportivo la Coruna did last season, to avoid elimination from the European Champions League by Bayern Munich on Wednesday. Liverpool, however, have a great chance of reaching the quarterfinals of the competition after beating Bayern’s Bundesliga rivals Bayer Leverkusen.
A Swiss musician sees colours when she hears music, and experiences tastes ranging from sour and bitter to low-fat cream and mown grass, astounded scientists say. Zurich University neuropsychologists were so intrigued by the case of ES — whose full name has been withheld — that they recruited her for a year-long inquiry.
The Burmese python is able to boost the size of its heart chambers by half in order to help it digest a big meal, thanks to a remarkable protein that expands cardiac muscle, researchers say. The reptile’s "extraordinarily rapid" increase in heart size enables it to cope with a 40-fold rise in metabolic rate during digestion.
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/ 24 February 2005
Online games where players battle fantasy creatures in interactive universes, pitting their skills against thousands of others simultaneously, are changing the internet and reaping huge profits for developers. In five years, since Everquest — now owned by Sony Online Entertainment — was launched in 1999, global sales of all video games have reached ,5-billion, outstripping cinema sales.
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/ 24 February 2005
The controversial sending-off of Chelsea striker Didier Drogba saw Barcelona come back from 1-0 down to beat the English Premiership leaders 2-1 in their Champions League first knockout round first-leg clash on Wednesday. Chelsea’s defeat was somewhat softened by the fact they have an away goal, whereas Manchester United lost 1-0 to AC Milan at Old Trafford.
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/ 18 February 2005
Dutch duo Boudewijn Zenden and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored the goals to give Middlesbrough a 2-2 draw at GAK in Graz on Thursday and put the English side in sight of the last 16 of the Uefa Cup. The Austrians were playing their first match in two months because of their winter break.
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/ 16 February 2005
She was "Big Meg", the largest of all spiders that ever strode the Earth. The 300-million-year-old fossil was so famous that plaster casts of her body are on display in numerous museums and copies can be purchased over the internet for hundreds of dollars apiece.
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/ 15 February 2005
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned the United Kingdom for violating the rights of two activists convicted of libelling United States fast food chain McDonald’s, ending a 15-year legal battle. The decision marked a victory for campaigners Helen Steel and Dave Morris, who were found guilty in the so-called ”McLibel” trial.
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/ 15 February 2005
France coach Bernard Laporte paid little heed to the 18-17 victory over England on Monday when he recalled three of last year’s Six Nations Grand Slam heroes for the crucial clash with Wales on February 26. He recalled number eight Imanol Harinordoquy, winger Aurelien Rougerie and centre Yannick Jauzion, France’s player of the year.
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/ 11 February 2005
Former champion Amelie Mauresmo, the second seed, ousted fellow Frenchwoman Mary Pierce to advance to the quarterfinals of the 000 Paris Indoor Open on Thursday. Mauresmo, the 2001 champion, won 6-4, 6-3 in a tight second-round match against the unseeded Pierce, the 1998 winner.
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/ 10 February 2005
Top seed Serena Williams smashed a racquet on her way to a quarterfinal berth at the 000 Paris Indoor Open on Wednesday. Playing in her first tournament since winning a second Australian Open title in Melbourne last month, the 23-year-old American claimed a 6-3, 6-2 victory over French wildcard entry Stephanie Cohen-Aloro.
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/ 3 February 2005
Formula-one chiefs are stepping up their campaign to slash escalating costs with cutbacks in testing as well as reducing the mini army of people on team duty at grand-prix weekends being proposed. The governing body of the sport, the FIA, believes significant savings can be found by restrictions on testing and by reverting to just one tyre supplier.
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/ 2 February 2005
A dead hedgehog that was at the origin of an airport mishap involving an Air France passenger plane nearly seven years ago has ended up costing the French government more than €3-million (about R23-million) in a court ruling on Tuesday.
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/ 28 January 2005
Postal workers in the south-eastern French city of Saint Etienne refused to do their rounds on Thursday after they were denied extra pay to cope with the biting winter cold, employees and management said. About 70 of the workers did not deliver mail to homes and businesses.
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/ 25 January 2005
Only three tournaments into the 2005 United States PGA season and already modern golf’s ”big three” — Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els — have proved just how far ahead of the rest of the best they are. All three have already banked more than -million in earnings, with Woods at the top of the money list on 214 000.
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/ 24 January 2005
A 48-year-old Frenchman who went missing last month has been found emaciated but alive in an underground cave system where he spent 35 days in pitch blackness eating nothing but wood and clay, police said on Sunday. "It was truly terrible fumbling around with nothing to eat," Jean-Luc Josuat-Verges said.
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/ 18 January 2005
Airbus on Tuesday lifted the curtain on its A380 super jumbo — the world’s biggest passenger aircraft that is set to eclipse Boeing’s 747 when it takes to the skies next year. The European company unveiled the aircraft, which can carry up to 840 passengers, at a glitzy ceremony at its headquarters in Toulouse, south-west France.
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/ 17 January 2005
A French cook who worked for no pay and no vacation for 17 years has won a case against his former employers after producing evidence of his exploitation that had lawyers shaking their heads in disbelief. A labour tribunal has awarded Philippe Pitiot €70 742 (about R558 000) in back pay for the past five years.