Foreign

Sharks target Super 12 title
CANBERRA -- The Sharks, cocooned from the pre-match hype, are banking on distractions in the ACT Brumbies' camp to take home South Africa's first Super 12 rugby title here today. No South African team has won the southern hemisphere crown and alt...

Festival Preparations
Two Kathakali dancers in the southern Indian state of Kerala apply herbal makeup at a festival at a temple in Palakkad. Tirupanitura Unnikrishnan (left) and Sadanam Vijayan say it takes three hours to apply the makeup, which includes irritants to ...

CRAZY WORLD
Getting their beef SCHOOLCHILDREN aged just 4 and 5 in America watched a two-year-old cow named T-Bone being slaughtered and then cut up to show where hamburgers come from. Animals rights activists condemned the event at Carbon Canyon Ch...

Blind American scales heights of Mount Everest
KATHMANDU -- A 32-year-old American mountain climber who lost his sight to an eye disease when he was a teenager became the first blind person to conquer Mount Everest yesterday. Erik Weihenmayer, of Colorado, reached the summit as a member of an...

Violent past of Coliseum to come alive again
ROME -- Swords, spears and shields are to return to the Coliseum next month, when a new exhibition on Rome's gladiators opens inside the ancient arena. Beginning on June 21 and until the end of the year, Blood and Arena will feature 150 exhibits,...

23 die as wedding hall floor collapses
JERUSALEM -- Brick by brick, rescue workers dug for survivors yesterday from a wedding that turned tragic when the top floor of the banquet hall collapsed into a pile of rubble, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 300. Assi and Kere...

2 die, 12 injured in suicide attack on Israeli town
JERUSALEM -- A car bomb exploded in a northern Israeli town yesterday, killing two presumed bombers, hours after an abortive similar attack on soldiers in the Gaza Strip triggered more clashes with Palestinians. An explosives-laden taxi blew up n...

Aids 'big threat' to Botswana
GENEVA -- The future of Botswana, a nation hailed as Africa's economic success story, is threatened because it has the world's highest rate of Aids infection, a UN official said yesterday. "The country's 30-year success is under threat," said Mac...

MDC defeats pro-govt motion in legislature
HARARE -- After nearly a year in parliament, Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change has chalked up its first major victories against President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party, reports said yesterday. A ruling party motion that ...

History if Montoya takes Monaco
MONTE CARLO -- Juan Pablo Montoya could make history in tomorrow's Monaco Grand Prix. The 25-year-old Colombian could become the first driver to win the famed Formula One race in his rookie season. Last year, Montoya won the Indy 500 in his firs...

Zambia's ruling party splits
LUSAKA -- Zambia's ruling party split apart yesterday ahead of general elections due in five months, after a divisive debate over the president's political future. All 80 members of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy's national executive commi...

Earthly touch
Japan's Emperor Akihito plants rice seedlings in a paddy at the imperial palace in Tokyo. The rice will be harvested and offered at Japan's most sacred Ise Grand Shrine in an imperial ritual. (AP) Eastern Cape &nbs...

Bush to host Mbeki at White House
WASHINGTON -- US President George W Bush will host President Thabo Mbeki next month to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in Africa, the White House said yesterday. "The two leaders will discuss the scope and future of the bilateral r...