what could have been a scene from car-heist movie <i>Gone In 60 Seconds</i>, a brazen Malaysian Porsche thief has struck again. After crashing the car, worth more than $280 000, out of an auto showroom, then abandoning it when fuel ran out, the thief returned with a can of petrol and stole it again — this time from the police, reports said on Wednesday.
A Swiss police force on Wednesday handed out bars of chocolate to motorists in an attempt to encourage safe driving habits. The one-day "Thank You" campaign targeted clean motorists stopped during routine roadside checks, following a rash of serious road offences this year in the western Fribourg region, cantonal police said in a statement.
Two Lebanese soldiers died overnight in a booby-trapped building at a Palestinian refugee camp where fighting with Islamist militants has lasted for two months. The fighting has cost the lives of at least 230 people, including 109 soldiers, and is the worst internal violence to hit Lebanon since the civil war ended 17 years ago.
![]()
South Africa marked Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday on Wednesday with tributes and congratulations as the anti-apartheid icon prepared to launch a new international group to help solve the world’s problems. Mandela was to unveil the group of elder statesmen at a news conference in Johannesburg.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday ruled out declaring an emergency in an effort to stem a tide of militant attacks that have killed more than 130 people this month. In the lastest violence, militants killed 17 soldiers in the North Waziristan region a day after a suicide bomber killed 16 people in the capital.
The spat between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Department of Home Affairs over the handling of Zimbabweans fleeing to South Africa continued on Wednesday. Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula ”has no idea” of the volumes of Zimbabwean refugees who will flow into South Africa over the next few months, the DA’s Mark Lowe said.
South African retail-sales growth jumped to 9% year-on-year in May at constant prices, official data showed on Wednesday, adding pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates further. Statistics South Africa said the sales growth surged from an upwardly revised 5,9% in April, lifting the number for the three months to May to 8,5%.
Four members of a gang believed to have blown up at least five ATMs have been arrested in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), police said on Wednesday. Police spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said two were arrested last Friday, a third on Monday and the fourth on Tuesday.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that North Korea had shut down its nuclear reactor and four related facilities, a major step in efforts to get it to give up its nuclear-weapons programmes. The announcement came as negotiators at six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear-weapons programme sat down to a first day of talks in Beijing.
The South African Revenue Service has posted its simpler, shorter tax returns to individual taxpayers. More than 2,5-million tax returns have been sent to the South African Post Office and will be delivered to taxpayers around the country this month. By the end of July, almost four million IT12 S and IT12C returns will have been mailed.