China has arrested nine monks for a bomb attack on a government building in Tibet last month, an official said on Sunday. Tibetan support groups warned that it was impossible to verify the claims because the authorities do not allow independent observers into the region.
Fictional robots always have a personality: Marvin was paranoid, C-3PO was fussy and HAL 9000 was murderous. But reality is disappointingly different. Sophisticated enough to assemble cars and assist during complex surgery, modern robots are dumb automatons, incapable of striking up relationships with humans. But that could soon change.
Developing countries, including China and India, are unwilling to sign up to a new global climate-change pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 because the rich world has failed to set a clear example on cutting carbon emissions, according to the United Nations’s top climate official.
T Boone Pickens is famous for thinking big. He founded his Texan oil company, Mesa Petroleum, in 1956 with just 500 in the bank. After a string of audacious takeovers he turned it into an independent empire that challenged the big oil companies, and today he is worth -billion. Now this straight-talking Southerner is launching the biggest and most audacious project of his career.
Zimbabwe’s official presidential election results may remain secret for at least another week while substantial numbers of votes are recounted in a move the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says is designed to overturn fraudulently Robert Mugabe’s defeat and his Zanu-PF party’s defeat in Parliament.
Five men robbed the Scottsville KFC fast-food outlet in KwaZulu-Natal just after the power was scheduled to be turned off, Midlands police said on Sunday. It is alleged the men entered the premises on Friday at about 7.30pm under the pretence of being customers, said Inspector Joey Jeevan.
Parliamentarians cannot remain silent about Zimbabwe, a case of ”democracy gone wrong”, National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete said in Cape Town on Sunday at the opening of the 118th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting. In his speech, President Thabo Mbeki congratulated the IPU for its stance on gender equality in government.
Sporting heroes inspire others to become sporting heroes, as new Masters champion Trevor Immelman testified following his two-stroke win over Tiger Woods on Sunday. It was a minor miracle that he was even playing in the Masters, having undergone a major operation just 15 weeks ago.
South Africa’s inadequate public sector anti-HIV treatment has been highlighted again this week with the release of expert guidelines on antiretroviral therapy in the region. The guidelines released by the Southern African HIV Clinicians’ Society are likely to be adopted by the private sector.
Cervical cancer still kills thousands of women in South Africa, mostly poor women in their 40s and 50s, many of whom are the breadwinners in their families. Last week pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme launched a cervical cancer vaccine, known as the quadrivalent human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine.