A shop in Portugal plans to start selling ice cream in flavours such as shrimp, cod, tuna and grilled sardines when it opens next month, Lusa news agency reported on Thursday. The store will offer 60 exotic flavours alongside traditional options such as chocolate and vanilla, its owner told the agency.
The death toll from a boat accident in Ghana earlier this month was considerably lower than initial estimates suggested, officials said on Thursday as they launched an investigation into the accident. Initial reports said about 120 of the 150 people believed to have been on the boat had drowned, but on Thursday police downgraded the numbers to no more than 30.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in Paris for a medical examination on Thursday, five months after undergoing stomach surgery in the French capital, French and Algerian officials said. Algerian officials said 69-year-old Bouteflika, who was operated on for a bleeding stomach ulcer at a Paris military hospital last November, was in the country for a routine consultation.
It is time for politicians and security-force officers to face the music for their role in apartheid-era human rights violations, a Cape Town conference heard on Thursday. Former Truth and Reconciliation Commission member Yasmin Sooka said she would like to see ”those who created this milieu” brought to book.
British charity Oxfam International on Thursday launched its biggest food-crisis aid appeal to date, asking for more than -million to save millions in drought-hit East Africa. The appeal for the funds, the organisation’s largest single call for donations to avert a food crisis in its 60-year history, came as the United Nations warned that recent rains across the region were not enough to alleviate suffering.
The Competition Commission will hold a public inquiry into bank charges and access to the payment system, it said on Thursday. It was releasing a research report into the national payment system (NPS) and competition in the banking sector. The NPS is the accounting and transaction system between banks and other financial institutions.
A major breakthrough in the fight against the HIV/Aids epidemic may be likely as research into a revolutionary new type of technology, known as microbicides, gains momentum. Professor Helen Rees of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand said in a statement to the media that microbicides are crucial in reducing the spread of HIV/Aids.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has turned down an invitation to be part of the South African delegation at next month’s special United Nations session on HIV/Aids. TAC general secretary Sipho Mthathi said the process of selecting and announcing the delegation had been unsatisfactory.
World oil prices reached new peaks on Thursday, above in London and in New York owing to low stocks of gasoline in the United States and tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for June delivery struck a record high of ,22 per barrel. New York’s benchmark contract for light sweet crude for May delivery hit an all-time peak of ,49.
The situation in eastern Chad, a region plagued by rebel incursions and refugee crises, has taken a dramatic turn for the worse as a rebellion against President Idriss Déby Itno gathers force, aid workers say. Rebels from the United Front for Change (FUC) left their base in the east last week and three days later launched their biggest offensive yet on N’djamena.