The Beijing city government has turned down an undertaker’s application to send human ashes into space, state media said Friday. A funeral home’s proposal to charge 100Â 000 yuan ($12Â 500) each for sending two clients’ ashes into space was turned down on the grounds that there was no law regulating space burials, Xinhua news agency reported.
Czech police detained a journalist who tried to test out airport security at a regional airport on Friday, police spokesperson Roman Pittner said. "In the current situation we judge this as stupid," Pittner said, referring to the foiled terrorist attempt to bomb aircraft leaving London’s Heathrow airport.
Israeli air raids killed 11 people in north Lebanon on Friday as the United States and France strove to clinch a draft United Nations resolution to end the month-old war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. The bombing of a bridge near the border with Syria wounded 18 people, hospital staff said.
It is admirable that writers and filmmakers are not being held back from modern nightmares on grounds of taste or modesty, writes Natasha Walter.
A Philippine army offensive against Muslim rebels on the remote south-western island of Jolo may have foiled a plan to launch bombings in the capital Manila, officials said on Friday. Hundreds of troops, backed by United States intelligence, have been combing the hilly jungles near Indanan town to flush out members of the Abu Sayyaf group.
Five people have drowned and hundreds been displaced in northern Ethiopia since midweek after swollen rivers burst their banks, officials said on Friday. The flooding, which started on Wednesday, comes less than a week after flash floods killed 254 in an eastern township of the country.
Nearly 1Â 000 striking Shoprite workers marched down Durban’s West Street on Friday morning amid a heavy police presence. The workers were due to hand over a memorandum to the KwaZulu-Natal regional managing director of Shoprite at its flagship store in West Street. The Shoprite store in West Street was closed for business.
Angola’s Parliament has approved an amnesty plan for separatists in Cabinda as part of a deal to end a simmering 31-year conflict in the oil-rich province, media reported. The Angolan government and a faction of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda signed a peace deal earlier this month.
Zimbabwe’s central bank chief urged a collective fight against the ”inflation dragon” on Friday, saying it still posed a major threat to the economy despite falling to just under 1Â 000% recently. ”The successive modest decline in annual inflation over the months for June and July is a welcome development,” Gideon Gono said in a statement.
Election workers facing high logistical hurdles counted just over two million votes in the first 11 days since The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) historic vote, according to the Independent Electoral Commission. President Joseph Kabila held the lead in the presidential race, but the numbers were far from definitive, with only about 10% of ballots counted.