Only a thin barbed wire fence protects Africa’s first nuclear reactor, once Kinshasa’s pride that today sits dormant on an eroding hill in a country wracked by decades of misrule and conflict. Last month international experts again voiced concern about security at the Kinshasa Regional Centre for Nuclear Studies.
Amid the horror at Virginia Tech were tales of heroism during the rampage, including an older professor — himself a Holocaust survivor — who gave his life to protect his students. Although he was 76, long past the usual retirement age, he was still teaching at Virginia Tech on Monday when chaos erupted in Norris Hall.
The gunman who massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech university was identified on Tuesday as a student from South Korea and a troubled loner whose behavior had sometimes alarmed those around him. As students and teachers grieved at a tearful memorial service led by President George Bush, police said Cho Seung-Hui (23) had acted alone.
A giant freshwater carp nicknamed the "tiger fish" for its great fighting abilities is set to return to the fast-flowing rivers of Indian Kashmir, officials say. Scientists have built a hatchery for breeding the mahseer and hope to restock the waters of Kashmir, known as an "angler’s paradise", although few foreign fishermen venture here now due to a deadly Islamic insurgency.
Whether it is through the soaring grace of the Eiffel Tower or the breathtaking beauty of Provence, France is hoping to lure tourists by persuading Hollywood to shoot more films there. An unprecedented alliance of French film and local government officials descended on Los Angeles last week to attend the Locations Trade Show, an annual fair that puts potential film sites in the movie industry’s shop window.
For United States farmers needing to plant a lot of corn and plant it fast, Rick Light has what they need — monstrous machines that can sow 120ha in a day. The machines, costing $100Â 000 or more, are attracting attention this year because planting corn in a hurry is on nearly every farmer’s mind.
Macmillan South Africa, one of the leading publishing houses, has announced a groundbreaking empowerment initiative to help the Gauteng education department tackle problems around literacy and the mobilisation of resources. Called READ Empowerment Trust, the initiative is Macmillan’s broad-based BEE structure that is intended to benefit learners and teachers in Gauteng.
Giant tortoises doze in the shade as rare lizards slip under bushes and endangered birds chatter in the sunlit trees overhead. On a small wooded island off southern Mauritius, environmentalists are trying to turn back time to an era before humans ever set foot on the volcanic Indian Ocean archipelago.
Politicians are lost deep in cyberspace, struggling to reach a new generation of tech-savvy voters through blogs, social networking sites and video-sharing. In the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama used their websites to launch their 2008 presidential campaigns.
Every spring, the cranes in the Arctic port of Dudinka are shifted several hundred metres away from the banks of the Yenisei River — with good reason. The river rises 8m when it thaws, tossing chunks of ice into anything blocking its path. Annual repairs cost more than -million.