Adam and Eve fall from grace and Noah survives an epic flood at a new museum that tells the Bible’s version of history on a theme-park scale. But the scene near the front lobby might stop a puzzled palaeontologist in his tracks: a pair of ancient children frolic just a few metres away from a group of friendly dinosaurs.
Marketing company Glomail has declined to say whether it intends to readvertise fraud convict Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory System after being ruled out of line by the Advertising Standards Authority. The supposed memory-training programme has already run foul of United States regulators.
A new press council is being established by the newspapers of South Africa, the founding bodies committee of the Press Ombudsman’s Office said on Friday. ”It will … amend the press code to include the definition and prohibition of child pornography,” said spokesperson Raymond Louw.
Ukraine’s president and prime minister will resume talks on Saturday in a bid to defuse an escalating political crisis and settle a dangerous arm-wrestle between the rivals for control of special security forces. President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych met for three hours late on Friday.
The building of a 44,7km monorail between Johannesburg and Soweto has been ”put on hold”, the Transport Ministry said on Friday. It said while the monorail proposal cannot be supported in its present form, the government is in principle not opposed to the concept of a monorail.
Pretoria High Court Judge Johan Els died when his car veered out of control and overturned outside Polokwane on Friday morning, Limpopo police said. Superintendent Mohale Ramatseba said Els died on the scene of the accident, 20km outside Polokwane, at 6.30am.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ruled that broadcasting equipment and infrastructure used by a television channel critical of leftist President Hugo Chávez be made available to the state-run TV channel that will replace it. The court also ordered the military to guard the equipment temporarily.
Public-sector unions on Friday warned the government of ”indefinite labour action” if their demands for better pay and working conditions were not met. The unions outlined six demands in a two-page memorandum submitted to the government in mass marches across the country.
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday rejected an allegation made last week by Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi that government propaganda is like that used by Adolf Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. ”The charge that our government … is behaving in a manner akin to the Nazis is very serious in the extreme,” he said.
Dane Bjarne Riis on Friday became the first rider to admit having used performance-enhancing drugs while winning the Tour de France. Riis, who won the race in 1996, said he used drugs between 1993 and 1998. ”I have taken doping, I have taken EPO,” Riis told a news conference. ”I purchased it myself and I took it myself. It was a part of everyday life as a rider.”