A group of Soweto residents is challenging the very basis of South Africa’s water for households strategy. The residents, who filed papers in the Witwatersrand High Court against the City of Johannesburg and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, are asking that the government’s capped free water allowance as well as prepaid water meters be declared unconstitutional.
The Presidency should release the final reports of the Khampepe and Jali commissions of inquiry, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday. ”Evidence is growing that the Presidency is being selective about which reports it deems fit for public discussion. It would appear that reports that damage the government’s record or reveal fissures in the ruling party are suppressed,” party leader Tony Leon said.
Food emergencies in Africa are occurring three times more often now than in the mid-1980s, but the global response to famine continues to be ”too little, too late”, the international aid agency Oxfam said on Monday. Conflict, HIV/Aids and climate change are exacerbating food shortages for sub-Saharan Africa’s 750-million people, with innovative solutions and long-term support needed to break the cycle.
Forget about Japanese technology. Japan’s latest contribution to the war on terrorism is tiny fish, which will be deployed to detect contamination of water supplies. Light-orange rice fish, which are about 4cm long and are commonly kept as pets in Japan, will alert authorities if their movement is irregular.
The first men on the moon had to use a pen to fix a broken switch on their lunar module and return home to earth, British newspaper the <i>Daily Mirror</i> reported on Monday. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Buzz Aldrin, his fellow astronaut, accidentally snapped off the switch of a circuit breaker, and found they could not take off without it.
For those who relish looking back on the small, often inconsequential details of their lives, a Japanese company has come up with a "Big Brother" mobile network that makes up where human memory fails. Japan’s number two telecom operator KDDI said on Monday that it had developed a server that keeps a record of the smallest events in a person’s electronic life.
Last ditch talks to keep hopes alive of a global free deal faced a deepening crisis on Monday after trading powers failed to achieve a breakthrough at a marathon first session, diplomats said. The so-called G6 — Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the European Union and the United States — must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods.
An oil-driven economic boom has made Angola the toast of the town in boardrooms from Houston to Beijing. But on the outskirts of the African nation’s bustling capital of Luanda, the talk is not of a more prosperous future but rather of a stolen one.
A growing number of Americans are setting up mini-refineries in their homes to produce biodiesel, a fuel made from waste cooking oil which is cleaner and cheaper than the petrol sold in gas stations. The sky-high price of crude oil is scaring everyone.
Injury-hit South Africa were on Monday boosted by the news that veteran all-rounder Shaun Pollock will arrive in Sri Lanka later this week following the birth of his second child. The 33-year-old will reach Colombo on Thursday, missing the first of the two Test matches which starts at the Sinhalese sports club.