The brilliant American satirical magazine, The Onion, recently headlined a new development in education in the United States: “Evangelical scientists refute gravity with new ‘intelligent falling’ theory”. Its report continued: “Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held ‘theory of gravity’ is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
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The Constitutional Court on Thursday reserved judgement in the appeal by Schabir Shaik against his fraud and corruption conviction, his 15-year jail term and the seizure of his assets. While Shaik’s counsel, Martin Brassey SC, has argued for a mistrial, counsel for the state maintains he should have spoken up a lot sooner if he was unhappy.
United States President George Bush on Thursday warned of heavy fighting and bloodshed to come in the next ”critical” weeks and months in Iraq, and told Iran it faces tougher sanctions over its nuclear defiance. In a White House news conference, Bush also said that US forces would pull out of Iraq if asked to do so by the Baghdad government.
Disgruntled public servants are set to swamp the streets of major South Africa cities on Friday in mass marches to press for better pay, union leaders said. The demonstrations, they said, are a mere forerunner of a full-blown strike next month by more than one million civil servants demanding a 12% salary increase.
Zambia’s corruption-tainted former president Frederick Chiluba collapsed on Thursday and has been admitted to hospital, his spokesperson said. Chiluba, who is suffering from an acute cardiac complication, collapsed at his house in the morning, Emmanuel Mwamba said.
The Gauteng provincial government on Thursday said it was waiting for an urgent meeting with the national government on the province’s planned R12-billion monorail linking Johannesburg and Soweto ”The [provincial minister] is awaiting a response from the minister,” said spokesperson Alfred Nhlapo.
The feasibility study for a proposed R12-billion monorail between Soweto and central Johannesburg was ”Mickey Mouse,” the chairperson of Parliament’s standing committee on transport, Jeremy Cronin, said on Thursday. ”On the face of what we got it’s not only the process that is poor …,” Cronin said.
Several trade unions representing workers at South African Airways (SAA) have joined forces against the proposed restructuring of the airline, they said on Thursday. The Restructuring Labour Caucus said it had written to SAA’s management and board voicing dissatisfaction.