Toshiba said on Thursday it will start selling the world’s first recorders for the HD DVD high-definition video disc next month. The new recorder, the RD-A1, combines an HD DVD burner with a one-terabyte hard disk and can record and store up to 130 hours of high-definition broadcasts, Toshiba said in a statement.
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Wild celebrations erupted across Australia on Friday after the Socceroos secured a vital draw in their do-or-die match against Croatia to reach the last 16 of the World Cup for the first time. Melbourne’s Federation Square had to be closed off after more than 9Â 000 people jammed into the precinct.
"The wonderful cultural mix in Durban definitely has an effect on my work, because there is no one style of dressing," said fashion designer Amanda Laird Cherry. "It’s so inspiring to walk down Grey Street and see people in punjabis and kurthas, men walking with skins in their belts, a traditional Shembe stick and a briefcase. You see this every day, and you can’t help but be inspired."
Celebrating a half century of dealings with Africa, China’s policies still wear the cloak of ideology but are increasingly driven by a cold-eyed self-interest. When it tied the diplomatic knot with Egypt in 1965 Beijing was speaking of mutual respect and mutual benefit — a refrain it maintained for the next 40 years or more.
Severe governance upheavals at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) have prompted the intervention of Minister of Education Naledi Pandor. But some members of the DUT council fear the minister could dilute or even halt a forensic audit into alleged financial irregularities, and possible fraud, involving more than R150-million.
Treatment of HIV/Aids, including the provision of anti-retroviral drugs, will now be available to inmates of Durban’s Westville Prison after a Durban High Court ruling by Judge Thumba Pillay. Fifteen HIV-positive prisoners had taken the prison and the departments of health and correctional services to court to force them to fulfil their constitutional and legal obligation to provide treatment.
A land reform project in Worcester is on the brink of collapse after nature and bureaucracy conspired against the 52-strong community. They say the Land Bank has been a major cause of their woes. "We’ve been able to keep other creditors at bay, but the bank is demanding its pound of flesh," said community member Niklaas Prins.
Zimbabwe’s three major milling companies have switched off their milling plants because of a serious shortage of grain in the country, Zim Online reported on Friday. ”There is nothing at major millers. We have not been milling for two weeks now,” said an official at a Harare milling company.
Always an unconditional supporter of the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has for the first time publicly mooted an independent future and a different political mate. In a path-breaking document released last week, the organised working class is presented with five visions of its political future.
The budget for Oliver Stone’s forthcoming movie about the September 11 attacks, starring Nicolas Cage, is -million. So it does not bode well that Paramount Pictures, the studio behind it, is worried that a 12-minute student art project, distributed free on the web, might be confused with the real thing.