A major wrestling match in the United States’ Congress over control of the internet features some strange alliances — rockers and evangelists vs phone companies and the Bells’ usually biggest adversary, cable TV companies. The most far-reaching telecommunications Bill in a decade has as its main purpose making it easier for phone companies to compete against cable companies in offering the equivalent of cable TV.
The Ecuadoreans have colds. The Angolans are shivering. Trinidad and Tobago players stuffed their hands deep in their pockets as they took the field for a friendly. In Hamburg, about 320km to the north, even the locals are bundling up in thick wool coats and scarves.
South Africa’s foreign arrivals have jumped from less than one million annual foreign arrivals in 1990 to 7,3-million in 2005, said Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk. Speaking in his Budget vote on Tuesday, the minister noted that there was "little doubt as to why tourism has been identified as one of the immediate priority sectors".
People in South Africa are scared of rampaging crime. Robbery, of course, is only one of many crimes over which South Africans obsess. With constant reports in the media of carjackings, rapes and murders, and with friends and family readily sharing their personal brushes with violence, it is no wonder that crime and safety issues are on many minds.
The Italy soccer team will find themselves in familiar surroundings when they arrive at their World Cup accommodation in Duisburg, Germany. Antonio Pelle, an Italian expatriate from the southern region of Calabria, jointly owns the four-star Landhaus Milser hotel and has gone to great lengths to ensure his illustrious guests don’t feel homesick.
More arrests were expected following the detention of 17 people over an alleged al-Qaeda-inspired plot to bomb high-profile targets in Canada. Amid media reports that the Canadian Parliament was on the group’s hitlist, Mike McDonell, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said: ”This investigation is not finished.”
The price of bread in Zimbabwe has gone up from Z$85 000 (84 US cents) to Z$130 000 ($1,28) for a standard loaf, with bakeries blaming the increase on the unavailability of flour and the rise in fuel prices, the state-owned <i>Herald</i> newspaper reported on Tuesday.
About 200 hooligans ordered to hand over their passports by May 30 have failed to do so, the British Home Office announced on Monday. The order was given to stop known troublemakers heading to Germany for the World Cup but several have ignored the order.
There’s not many bowlers in the world who can take eight wickets in an innings and have that performance rated only somewhere among their top 10. On Monday it looked as though Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan might become only the third bowler in cricket history to take all 10 wickets in an innings — after former England spinner Jim Laker and India legspinner Anil Kumble.
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Ghana are not afraid to play Italy or their other Group E opponents at the World Cup after receiving a boost with the return of midfielder Michael Essien. The West Africans, making their first World Cup appearance in Germany, were buoyed by Sunday’s 3-1 warm-up victory over South Korea.