London

A planned sale by British Airways of its stake in Australia’s Qantas has reignited talk of further consolidation in the European airline industry, but analysts played down prospects of an imminent deal. The British carrier said on Wednesday it expects to net about £425-million from a sale of the 18,25% stake in Qantas.

Loyal fans of British author JK Rowling who managed to crack a code on Rowling’s official website have been rewarded with a sneak preview of the eagerly awaited sixth book in the Harry Potter series, according to reports on Monday. The book is entitled Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds — worried that its feathered friends are underfed — has devised a highly original and not very scientific means to measure a possible decline in the insect population, The Independent reported on Thursday.

Apathy should become the eighth deadly sin of the modern age, taking its place alongside the traditional vices of greed, gluttony, envy, sloth, pride, lust and wrath, a British poll said on Wednesday. Religion itself narrowly missed out on a top 10 place, while less traditional sins also included ”celebrity-ism”.

When Tony Cooper and Lisa Kingscott left their four-seater light plane parked in a field to have lunch with friends nearby, they paid little attention to the cows quietly grazing nearby. When they returned, they were astonished to find that the herd had developed an unlikely taste for its fuselage and were munching their way through a large section.

British scientists have developed the world’s first practical plastic magnet. The breakthrough could lead to new advances in computing and medical applications. The new plastic magnet, developed by the University of Durham’s organic electroactive materials group, is the first in the world to operate at room temperature.

Zimbabwe’s controversial President Robert Mugabe was voted the third-greatest African of all time, topped only by South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, in a survey for New African magazine, it was announced on Wednesday.

He might be considered the father of modern science who devised fundamental laws about gravity and motion, but Sir Isaac Newton is not even Britain’s greatest-ever physicist, according to a new ”top 10”. The number-one slot went to Joseph Swan, the 19th-century creator of the first practical light bulb.

British scientists have found a seemingly unlikely way to soothe anxious sheep, a report said on Wednesday — by showing them photographs of other sheep. Much as humans find a picture of loved ones a reassuring item to carry in their wallet, the sight of a friendly face appears to lower stress levels in sheep.

The majority of British people remember Mark Thatcher as one of the only people who ever made his mother, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, show any personal feelings in public. But now he has been arrested in South Africa over his alleged involvement in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea.

The British scientist who masterminded the ill-fated Beagle II probe, which vanished while attempting to land on Mars, said on Tuesday he wants to try again and has asked Nasa for a ride to the Red Planet. He was speaking at a press conference to unveil an investigation into what went wrong with Beagle II.

A British man put a flight from Norway in danger after setting fire to a pornographic magazine under his seat, a court was told on Tuesday. David Mason used a cigarette lighter to ignite torn-out pages from the magazine, which he had bought himself, saying later he had been ”offended” by them.

The last surviving British World War II gunboat in existence could be sold to collectors in Germany due to the lack of a domestic purchaser, its owner said on Friday. Phil Clabburn has spent the past five years and £500 000 (about R5,85-million) restoring the MGB81 boat, which saw action on D-Day in June 1944.

One of a pair of rare Komodo dragon lizards brought to the London Zoo amid great fanfare last month has died after falling off a wall while trying to reach her mate, zoo officials said on Friday. Nina, a 10-year-old female Komodo dragon, died of internal bleeding on Wednesday after somehow scrambling up a 2,4m wall.

Workers were on Thursday beginning to clear thousands of tons of mud and rock from a main road in Scotland, a day after two massive landslides left more than 50 people stranded. Motorists had to be winched to safety by helicopter after the landslides blocked two parts of the A85 motorway in central Scotland.