Foreign

Suicide bomb ends 3-week lull in violence
TEL AVIV -- A Palestinian suicide bomber killed an Israeli woman and wounded 29 other people yesterday when he blew himself up here, while Israeli tanks in the Gaza Strip killed two more youths. The suicide bombing ended a three-week lull in viol...

SA chess player wins first round
RAMOJI FILM CITY, India -- South African Watu Kobese, formerly of East London, defeated Alex Yermonlinsky of the US, and Indian women scored two victories on the first day of the World Chess Cup 2002 yesterday. Kobese's first-round victory follow...

Bin Laden 'alive, well, gaining weight'
DUBA -- Osama bin Laden is alive and well and has even put on weight, a Saudi weekly reported yesterday, quoting what it said was the head of information for Bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network. "For your information, Bin Laden's weight has incre...

Iraq invites US to inspect alleged weapon sites
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's arms programme chief invited the US administration yesterday to inspect two alleged secret weapon sites, shortly before Baghdad reported a fresh US air strike on a southern airport. US warplanes attacked Basra international airp...

Allow food aid or face disaster, Zim govt warned
MZARABANI -- The United States ambassador to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Tony Hall, warned yesterday that Zimbabwe was heading for a major tragedy unless the government "opens its doors and does away with bureaucratic red tape...

Call-girl gives dad heart attack
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli man suffered a heart attack when he summoned a call-girl to his hotel and opened the door to his daughter, a newspaper reported yesterday. The 48-year-old businessman was treated in hospital in the Red Sea port of Eilat be...

BoE rate remains
LONDON -- The Bank of England left its key lending rate unchanged at four percent yesterday. The base rate is what the Bank of England charges on loans to commercial lenders. -- Sapa-AP Eastern Cape   So...

SEA CHALLENGE
The Swiss yacht Alinghi, right, is locked in battle with the US Stars & Stripeson day seven of round robin one of the Louis Vuitton Challenge Cup in Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday. Alinghi beat Stars & Stripes by one m...

Striking fathers use babies in picket
MELBOURNE -- Striking fathers at a steel processing plant here won the right to paternity leave and a pay rise yesterday, a day after taking their tots onto the picket line to press their claims. The 15 burly employees of the A-Straightening Comp...

WORLD WATCH
SA suspects in UK court SUTTON COLDFIELD -- Two South Africans appeared in court in this central English town yesterday on charges linked to the murder of a private detective who was found battered to death in 1995. Paul Ras, 40, and Loren Ande...