SABC

The South African Sevens team is unbeaten on day one of the penultimate tournament of the International Rugby Board's Sevens World Championship series in London. The Boks beat France 19-12 in their opening pool match and thrashed Canada 43-0.

Captain Mzwandile Stick displayed great footwork and scored two tries for the Boks in the first half against France. The Boks led 14-0 going into the break. In the second half, Cecil Afrika capitalised on a disorganised France - scoring his 20th try of the series.

In the day's other match the Boks got off to a flying start against Canada, and led 17-0 at halftime. Ryno Benjamin scored a hat trick of tries while Afrika, MJ Mentz and Neil Powell also crossed the try line.

Defending world champions South Africa have not won a tournament in this series. They are in sixth place whereas Samoa leads the overall championship standings, three points ahead of eight time winners New Zealand. South Africa take on Fiji later this evening.

SABC

Local communities are set to be the main beneficiaries of a trillion-rand infrastructure project by the South African Government. The announcement was made by Economic Development Minister, Ebrahim Patel who was speaking at the first Business Information session held in Vredendal, on the Cape West Coast, an initiative aimed at skilling local businesses.

Vredendal is the economic heart of the Matzikamma District, 360km from Cape Town and strong in agriculture. The Economic Development Department wants to unlock the West Coast town's potential as well as to encourage developmental finance entities to provide support to the entrepreneurs.

Janet Prins, 43, is one such entrepreneur who has been struggling to get financial support to fulfill her dreams of expanding her tuck-shop. She has been running the tuck-shop for seven-years now and says she wishes the state’s project could help enlarge her business so it can have a sustainable future.

Patel believes mentorship is key for local entrepreneurs to take full advantage of opportunities, which is why the Government's infrastructure spend must lead to local spending in communities by ensuring local suppliers and manufacturers benefit. The minister says there is a need to bring millions of people, from cities to small towns, into jobs.

Patel says Matzikamma is an agricultural production centre and the aim is to expand its agro-processing business. Patel says the time for talk-shops is over and that Government wants to see outcomes from its investments so that rural communities can truly benefit from economic growth.

SABC

Survivors of Air India Express passenger plane from Dubai that crashed outside an airport in India's southern Mangalore city after overshooting the runway today, recounted their near death experience from their hospital beds.

There were only eight survivors after the Boeing 737-800, with 166 people on board including crew, appeared to have skidded off the runway in rain at Mangalore airport in Karnataka state, Air India director Anup Srivastava said.

All the passengers were Indian nationals, an Air India official in Dubai said. Air India Express is the budget arm of the loss making state-run carrier Air India, which has been fending off growing competition from private airlines. First indications are that the crash was an accident, officials say. The plane crashed around 6:30 am (0100 GMT). TV images showed it struck a forested area.

Flames were seen blazing from the wreckage as rescue workers fought to bring the fire under control. "We left Dubai at 1.15 and reached here at 6.20. While landing at the runway, the plane fell down. It shook...the pilot applied sudden brakes, it hit some building and immediately the plane caught fire and burst into pieces...I fell out when the sudden brakes were applied. Along with me another four or five people also fell down," survivor,Stalin Mayakutti told reporters while in hospital.

India's first major crash in decades

It was India's first major crash in more than a decade, which has seen a boom in private carriers amid growing demand from India's middle class. A series of near misses at major airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, has sparked debate about how India's creaking infrastructure was failing to keep pace with an economic boom.

Krishna, another survivor and a resident of the neighbouring southern state of Kerala said the plane hit something before bursting into flames. "While landing at the airport, the plane deviated and hit something. It caught fire and we fell out. We looked up and saw some opening and came out through that route. We came out of the jungle and reached near a railway track. From there some people brought us to the hospital. There were five of us," Krishna said.

The last major crash in India was in July, 2000, when an Alliance Air Boeing 737-200 crashed into a residential area during a second landing attempt in the eastern city of Patna, killing at least 50 people. With growing competition from private carriers, the Indian government agreed to infuse $1.1 billion into loss-making Air India if the ailing state-run carrier found the same amount in cost cuts and extra revenue.

The airline lost $875 million in the fiscal year ended March 2009. Hundreds of Air India pilots went on strike in September 2009 to protest management plans to cut pay incentives. The strike was called off when aviation minister Praful Patel said the grievances would be dealt with. –Reuters

ALJAZEERA



Ethiopians are set to vote in national elections that are expected to return Meles Zenawi, the long-serving prime minister, to power in the first ballot since a disputed poll in 2005 turned violent.

Polls open around the country at 6am (03:00 GMT) on Sunday and close at 6pm. Some 32 million Ethiopians - 90 per cent of eligible voters – are expected to make their choices at more than 43,000 polling stations across the huge nation.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons, reporting from the capital Addis Ababa, said most people were wondering by what margin the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) would win, rather than whether it would win.

The biggest challenge to it comes from the eight-party coalition Medrek - or the Forum – but it is united chiefly by its desire to unseat Meles and has not set out clear policies, our correspondent said.

The opposition admits it has little chance of victory but says that is because the EPRDF has tightened its grip on power since the 2005 polls, routinely intimidates and jails its critics and tries to divide the opposition.

2005 riots

In 2005, riots broke out in Addis Ababa when the EPRDF was declared winner. Security forces killed 193 protestors and seven policemen also died in trouble that tarnished the reputation of one of the world's biggest aid recipients.

The EPRDF says it has since won popularity during a period of sustained economic growth by building roads, hydropower dams and electrifying villages in a country where nearly 10 per cent of the population needed emergency food aid last year.

There were concerns over whether Sunday's vote would go peacefully, our correspondent said, and what would happen if there were again a dispute over the results, but he added that the political atmosphere was very different from five years ago, with people mindful of what happened in 2005.

While there has been some violence in the two regions of Oromia and Tigray, the capital has been calm before polling.

Outside the capital, both sides say members have died in politically motivated killings.

Diplomats and staff of some foreign charities have been banned from leaving Addis Ababa without permission from the authorities until after the poll.

In Tigray, the ruling party is facing a challenge from former members who fought with Meles over economic policy and how to deal with rival Eritrea.

17 years in power

Meles became leader of Ethiopia in 1991 when a rebel group led by him ousted a communist regime that killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians in a 17-year rule.

The 55-year-old leader was lionised by the West in 1991, with the then US president, Bill Clinton, calling him one of a "new generation" of leaders who would bring democracy to the continent.

But Meles has increasingly been criticised by rights groups who say he is becoming more autocratic and stifles dissent in the country of 80 million people.

Birtukan Mideksa, leader of one of the Medrek member parties and seen by analysts as a potential replacement for Meles, is in prison accused of violating the terms of a pardon that released her from a previous jail spell in 2007.

Medrek is running 421 candidates for the 547-seat federal parliament, not as high as the EPRDF's 521, but enough to form a clear majority should they pull off a shock win.

The next biggest opposition parties, the All Ethiopian Unity Organisation and the Ethiopian Democratic Party are running 350 and 250 candidates respectively.

PRESS TV

Three nomadic herdsmen from Nigeria's Muslim Fulani community have been killed in a Christian village near the city of Jos.

The men were killed late on Saturday in the area of the mainly Christian village of Tusung in the Barki Ladi region, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Jos, when they were reportedly looking for lost cattle.

"From nowhere youths suspected to be Berom numbering about 500 appeared and started unleashing havoc on the three Fulani men and immediately they died," AFP quoted Col. Kayode Ogundele as telling another senior army official in a cell phone message.

The victims were then "burnt, buried in shallow graves and later exhumed by the assailants themselves," said the colonel who directs a military operation against communal and religious violence in Plateau state.

Clashes are commonplace between the mainly Christian Beroms and the Muslim Hausa and Fulani, especially in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, and its environs.

Movement is somewhat restricted depending on one's ethnic group in Plateau state -- which lies on the limit of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south.

Plagued by sectarian tension, the region saw a hike in violence in March when about 500 Beroms were massacred in the village of Dogo Nahawa.

Some deemed the incident an act of revenge following the mass murder of over 300 Muslims earlier this year near the same city.