The South African government has dismissed as untrue a weekend report on the collapse of Southern African Development Community-led talks on Zimbabwe. ”Nothing is further from the truth,” Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said in a statement issued from India.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is to investigate a number of ways of ”contesting state power in elections” and will convene a policy conference next year to look at the various avenues open to it. A resolution on the ”SACP and state power” was adopted on the final day of the party’s 12th national congress.
A man who drove a restored army tank on a rampage against cellphone towers in Australia’s biggest city believed radio waves had ”harmed his head”, the tank’s owner said on Sunday. The 1967 British tank was spotted by police as it attacked an electricity sub-station in Sydney and was pursued as it went on to flatten seven cellphone towers.
Dental experts have raised doubts over the authenticity of a purported Buddha’s tooth in a Singapore temple, claiming it could not have come from any human being, a newspaper reported. ”There is absolutely no possibility that it is a human tooth,” said a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s school of dental science.
A North Korean diplomat confirmed on Sunday that his country had shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor after receiving an initial shipment of oil aid and said that United Nations inspectors would start to verify the closure later in the day. Kim Myong Gil also raised hope for further progress on disarmament.
Scientists say they have cracked a nearly eight-decade-old riddle involving the Möbius strip, a mathematical phenomenon that has also become an icon of art. Since 1930, the Möbius strip has been a classic poser for experts in mechanics. The teaser is to resolve the strip algebraically.
Troops stepped up security across the Somali capital on Saturday after Islamists threatened to disrupt this weekend’s peace conference, saying anyone who takes part ”is sentenced to death”. The threat came from the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year.
Osama bin Laden praises martyrdom in a new videotape posted on a militant website on Sunday by al-Qaeda’s media-production wing. The Bin Laden clip, which lasted less than a minute, was undated and part of a 40-minute video featuring purported al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan paying tribute to fellow militants who had been killed.
Skyrocketing inflation, erratic power supplies, a skills shortage and a dearth of foreign exchange have combined to ensure Zimbabwe is missing out on a global boom in gold prices. The potential benefits for manufacturers and miners are being rapidly eroded by the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar.
The United Nations and African Union host a meeting in Tripoli on Sunday to evaluate the troubled peace process in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur, which is bedevilled by fragmented rebel groups and competing initiatives. The meeting brings together those countries and organisations trying to end the four-year conflict.