A Turkish student said on Sunday he was poised to set a record at a nationwide university entrance exam … by giving the wrong answer to all 180 questions. Speaking to reporters after Sunday’s exam, which 1,5-million youths sat, Sefa Boyar said he was hopeful he would achieve the record.
A Florida dog that chomped for help by cellphone, saving the life of her owner in a diabetic seizure, fetched a humanitarian award in Miami on Monday. Belle the beagle dialled the emergency number 911 on her owner Kevin Weaver’s cellphone last February when he began to convulse and lapsed into unconsciousness.
Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain have killed at least 111 people in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province and left a further 101 missing, an official said on Wednesday. The disaster, which has hit at least seven districts in the province after two days of torrential rain, is the latest in a series of similar tragedies to hit the world’s biggest archipelago this year.
A former worker at the Royal Australian Mint who stole thousands of dollars from his employer by hiding Aus$2 coins in his boots was on Wednesday jailed for three years. William Bosia Grzeskowiak (48) admitted to stealing Aus$135 852 (about R719 000) in coins and notes between April last year and February this year.
Baboons at a British safari park are making a monkey of England World Cup fans by stealing the flags from their cars, the park’s bosses said on Wednesday. The animals have amassed a huge collection of the red-on-white St George’s cross flags at Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool, north-west England.
Zimbabwe’s domestic debt ballooned by 40% in just one month, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. Total government domestic debt stood at Z-trillion (-million) as of June 2, up from Z-trillion at the beginning of May, said the daily.
Several people were feared dead after an oil tanker exploded while discharging fuel at Nigeria’s main seaport in Lagos on Wednesday. ”It is still difficult to [tell] the exact number of dead, but there were indications that could have been several human and material casualties,” Christopher Borha, public relations manager of the Nigerian Ports Authority said.
Delegations from Somalia’s transitional government and the rival Islamic alliance were due to travel to Sudan on Wednesday to participate in Arab League-led mediation efforts, officials said. Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, the current chairperson of the Arab League, said on Tuesday he would try to bring the two factions to the negotiating table.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has escalated his rejection of the United Nations deploying peacekeepers in Darfur, saying they would be neo-colonialists and accusing Jewish organisations of pushing for their deployment. His comments are likely to increase tension with the UN Security Council and provoke an angry response.
The forestry sector could lose almost R900-million because of invasive alien wasps, says Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks. In written reply to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Janet Semple in the National Assembly, Hendricks said a control programme to limit damage had been introduced.