The Swiss government has agreed to ease restrictions on the importation of potatoes following fears that Euro 2008 soccer fans could face a shortage of French fries next month. A spokesperson for the country’s department of agriculture told national radio on Wednesday that the government would allow an additional 5 000 tonnes of potatoes to be brought in.
The Law Society of South Africa on Friday called for an overhaul of the justice system to deal with crime in the country. Co-chairpersons Vincent Saldahna and CP Fourie said the scourge of crime needed a more holistic and serious solution, which included the proper training of police officers.
Josef Fritzl, the man who incarcerated his daughter beneath his home for 24 years, has issued a frank confession from his cell, in which he has said he was driven by an addiction which ”got out of control”. Fritzl (73) said: ”I knew that what I was doing was not right, that I must be mad for doing such a thing.”
There are many ways of measuring Omar Bongo’s rule. You could count the monuments: the Omar Bongo Triumphal Boulevard, the Senate Palace Omar Bongo and the university, football stadium, gymnasium and military hospital that all bear his name.
Two of the developing world’s cellphone giants are sizing each other up, while other contendors look on with interest. There is little difference between MTN and Bharti Airtel — India’s largest mobile operator — at the weigh-in, which makes it difficult to predict which company would win a bout between them.
At first dismissed as a prank, and later cited as proof that God has a sense of humour, the duck-billed platypus has finally given up its evolutionary secrets. The creature has become the latest to have its genetic code sequenced, revealing it to be a bizarre mix of mammal, bird and reptile, with very complex sexuality.
President Thabo Mbeki is expected to fly to Zimbabwe on Friday amid growing pressure on Robert Mugabe not to continue delaying a second round of the presidential election after he lost the first vote. The head of Zimbabwe’s election commission said this week that it might postpone the run-off by up to a year, effectively extending Mugabe’s rule.
Click on image for full-size view.
Allegations that the Gauteng Transport Department (Gautrans) owed commuter bus operators payments as far back as June 2007, were untrue, the department said on Thursday. ”Hence, the department strongly condemns any attempts aimed at causing uncertainty and divisions within the bus industry.”
The Department of Health and the Department of Water Affairs are still collecting door-to-door information on the outbreak of diarrhoea in the Eastern Cape which cost 78 children’s lives, the provincial government said on Thursday. Spokesperson Papama Mfenyana said the province was still waiting for information from the team on the ground.