Parks and pavements in Germany are full of cyclists this summer, but not bicyclists. Almost everywhere, children, teenagers and adults are riding about on unicycles as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Unicycles, long associated with circuses, are making a comeback.
The question of whether Pluto is a real planet, hotly debated by scientists for decades, came to a head on Wednesday when the global astronomers’ body proposed a definition of a planet that raises their number to 12 from nine. Pluto would remain a planet but would fall into a newly created category called ”plutons”.
Car makers are developing increasingly sophisticated driver-assistance systems to boost safety, comfort and the fun factor. Some technology that is already standard in many vehicles, such as ESP (electronic stability programme), can significantly reduce the number of injuries and deaths in road accidents, according to tests conducted by the German technical testing authority Dekra
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Uganda on Wednesday asked South Africa to join efforts to mediate faltering peace talks with the Ugandan government aimed at ending two decades of fighting. The announcement from LRA supremo Joseph Kony came a day after the rebels won a 72-hour break in peace talks with the government.
An appeals court in Burkina Faso on Wednesday confirmed the scrapping of a case against a security official who was the sole suspect in the 1998 murder of journalist Norbert Zongo. The court said an appeal against last month’s judiciary decision to drop the case against Marcel Kafando was ”inadmissible”.
Pakistani security sources said on Wednesday that al-Qaeda’s ”number three” was behind the alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic flights leaving the United Kingdom. They also suggested Britain wanted to allow the plotters to try a dry run, without explosives, in order to gather more evidence.
As many as 12 000 people, many of them Hurricane Katrina survivors, jammed the New Orleans Arena late on Wednesday for the premiere of filmmaker Spike Lee’s four-hour documentary about the deadly storm. Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1 300 and rendering tens of thousands more homeless.
For 34 days they doggedly fought off the mighty Israeli army. But as a three-day-old ceasefire gathers traction, Hezbollah’s hardened fighters are swapping their missile launchers for spades, brooms and briefcases of cash. ”We want to bring south Lebanon back to life,” said Hezbollah’s top official in southern Lebanon.
Eskom has been ordered to pay R15 000 in damages after a giraffe was electrocuted when it touched a power line in Limpopo, News24 reported on Thursday. The judge ruled that Eskom should have envisaged that the placement of the power lines could injure giraffes on the farm in the Phalaborwa area.
For the first time the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy has passed the one-million mark, the International Aids Conference heard in Toronto on Wednesday. The 1,6-million people currently on treatment is a 24% increase over the 1,3-million on treatment in 2005.