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/ 13 January 2007
A California skunk that hitched a ride aboard a commercial truck to Canada this month is causing a stink, unable to find safe passage back home. The 1,8kg female travelled nearly 5 000km in five days without food or water in a sealed container, arriving slightly dehydrated but otherwise unharmed, a newspaper said.
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/ 13 January 2007
Federal prosecutors in California scored their first victory in the investigation of Hewlett-Packard’s ill-fated boardroom spying probe on Friday, when a low-level private investigator pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy charges. Bryan Wagner (29), of Littleton, Colorado, pleaded guilty to the two felony counts.
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/ 13 January 2007
The northern Mexican state of Coahuila became on Friday the third Latin-American jurisdiction to approve gay civil unions, but the new law bars same-sex couples from adopting children. The law, which follows similar moves in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, allows same-sex and heterosexual couples to register as ”civil or united companions”.
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/ 13 January 2007
Nine South Korean pipeline workers kidnapped in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region have been released, officials said. The nine Koreans and one Nigerian kidnapped on Wednesday were freed on Friday with the help of an unarmed neighbourhood-watch group and no ransom was paid, a Bayelsa state spokesperson said.
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/ 13 January 2007
The Xbox 360 bested the Wii and PlayStation 3 in United States holiday-season sales as Microsoft scored what analysts on Friday expected to be a lasting victory in the new-generation video-game-console war. In a twist, Sony’s prior generation, the PlayStation 2, outsold all the freshly launched consoles.
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/ 13 January 2007
An order from United States President George Bush authorised a series of US raids against Iranians in Iraq as part of a broad military offensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday. Also on Friday, US officials said there was no immediate plan to strike targets in Iran.
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/ 13 January 2007
Half-centuries by Hashim Amla, Ashwell Prince and Herschelle Gibbs helped South Africa to recover from a disastrous start to their first innings on the second day of the first Castle Lager Test against Pakistan at Supersport Park on Friday. At close of play, South Africa had 254 for four in reply to Pakistan’s first-innings total of 313.
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/ 13 January 2007
The plight of 120 prisoners serving life sentences was reviewed last month, but none was found to deserve early release, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Friday. The review was conducted by the National Council for Correctional Services, chaired by Judge Siraj Desai.
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/ 13 January 2007
Withholding the year-end reports of pupils unable to pay school fees is illegal, the Eastern Cape education department told South African Broadcasting Corporation news on Friday. Parents in the province have reportedly gone to court to force 10 schools to hand over their children’s report cards.
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/ 13 January 2007
A media rights group on Friday criticised the jailing of a journalist in Democratic Republic of Congo — the editor of the privately owned weekly Le Moniteur — following a libel case brought by a regional governor, suggesting it was driven by ”revenge”.