Ringtone provider Jamster’s animated television commercial for Crazy Frog — the "beh-ding-ding-dingy" ringtone turned dance hit — was named on Tuesday as the most irritating ad in Britain in 2005. Marketing magazine editor Craig Smith said the Crazy Frog advert’s irritation factor was caused by the frequency with which it was repeated during advert breaks.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change will have a new president by February next year following the incumbent leader’s failure to uphold its Constitution and values, Zimbabwe’s state-run<i>Herald</i> quoted a senior party official as saying on Tuesday.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has liquidated 13 commercial banks which failed in their efforts to recapitalise or merge with other banks, the CBN said on Tuesday in an official statement. Twenty-five mostly private banks at the weekend met the CBN December 31 deadline to rake up 25-billion naira (-million), merge or face liquidation.
A ”lacklustre” performance by Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula and the ”disappearance from the radar” of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi have left the Democratic Alliance wondering who is in charge of fighting crime, the party said in a statement on Tuesday.
The case of the 47-year-old handyman accused of killing a six-year-old Johannesburg boy in Plettenberg Bay was on Tuesday postponed to March 3 in the Knysna Magistrate’s Court. The court ordered that the man, known as Theuns Christian Olivier or Raymond Sinclair, be held at the Knysna correctional centre.
Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qureia lent his voice on Tuesday to a growing chorus insisting that the January 25 parliamentary elections be postponed unless Israel allows Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the municipality boundaries. ”There will be no elections without Jerusalem,” Qureia said.
A cholera outbreak has killed at least seven people in south-eastern Zimbabwe in the past week, the health ministry reported on Tuesday. Health authorities blamed torrential seasonal rains that have swept contaminated water from sewers and drains into drinking sources.
A dozen Greenpeace activists were detained by police on Tuesday after a protest at the French Embassy in India against a decision to send an asbestos-laden defunct warship to India to be broken up for scrap. The decommissioned aircraft carrier Clemenceau set sail from the French naval base of Toulon on Saturday for the world’s largest ship-breaking yard in Alang.
Supersport United player Sibusiso Mahlangu was charged with rape during a brief appearance in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court, west of Pretoria, on Tuesday, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported. Mahlangu was arrested on New Year’s Day. In an affidavit, Mahlangu said the complainant called him in the early hours of that morning and that they had spent some time together.
Jailed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein told two of his lawyers that if he is sentenced to death for war crimes, he would rather die by firing squad than by hanging, The Washington Times said on Tuesday. ”I don’t value this life that much. Every human being has his time to go,” Saddam was reported as saying.