A British museum visitor was arrested on Wednesday despite claiming to have accidentally smashed three 17th-century Chinese porcelain vases after tripping over a shoelace, police said. Nick Flynn (42), from Fowlmere, southern England, was arrested at his home on suspicion of criminal damage.
”Your article, boldly titled ‘Ministries aim to trash green laws’ (March 17 2006), is highly inaccurate, misleading and downright wrong. Ironically, it bases its facts on an article that showed how our policies enhance the environment. In reading your article, I was as flabbergasted as the people who wrote letters [to your newspaper] last week,” writes Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu.
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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi caused an uproar in Italy on Tuesday by blasting a particularly vulgar insult at left-wing voters. Addressing a meeting of shopkeepers in Rome, Berlusconi said: ”I have too high an esteem of Italians’ intelligence to believe that there are so many coglioni who may vote against their self-interest. I apologise for my coarse but effective language.”
Floods in Austria claimed their first victim on Tuesday as rising water in rivers caused a second dam to break, forcing many to evacuate their homes while emergency services worked to reinforce flood defences. An 18-month old boy was found dead on Tuesday afternoon after falling into the swollen Duerre Ager river while playing in front of his parents’ house.
Rights groups in Sierra Leone said on Tuesday they feared former Liberian president and warlord Charles Taylor, on trial for crimes against humanity, could undermine — or even escape — international justice. Taylor pleaded not guilty on Monday during his first appearance at a United Nations-backed court to charges including murder, mutilation, sexual slavery and use of child soldiers.
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Jacob Zuma believed the woman who has accused him of rape was sending him sexual signals, but denied that he set her up in his guest room to test them, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Tuesday. According to the former deputy president, she had never visited him wearing a skirt before.
Two guards were injured and another was abducted in Johannesburg on Tuesday amid tension between striking and non-striking security guard unions. This took place shortly after a non-striking union had warned that its members would fight back if they faced intimidation for ending their participation in the security guard strike that started last month.
South Africa is in danger of sliding off the list of the world’s top 10 wine-making countries as it runs out of vineyard space, and needs to focus on niche markets instead, a wine industry expert said on Tuesday. ”We are ranked ninth in the world, by volume,” said Su Birch, Wines of South Africa’s chief executive, speaking at the showcase Cape Wine 2006 conference.
Architect Dawid Rabie will give evidence in the Cape High Court on Wednesday as first witness called by the state in the LeisureNet trial, prosecutor Bruce Morrison announced on Tuesday. Morrison was addressing the court after all four accused entered pleas of not guilty.