The Power Alert system, launched on May 22, has taken only three weeks to prove its value, Eskom said on Thursday. The power utility said it expected a turbulent weekend in the Cape after the shutdown of the Koeberg nuclear power station’s unit one on Friday afternoon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Wednesday that his contested plan to set Israel’s borders on the West Bank with or without agreement from the Palestinians was unstoppable. "My plan cannot be stopped and is the most that Israel is prepared to agree to," he told reporters accompanying him on a state visit to Paris.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Wednesday he had held "constructive" talks with Iran’s main nuclear negotiator in his first contacts with the Iranians since he visited Tehran last week. "I had a phone conversation today [Wednesday] with Mr Ari Larijani. It was a constructive conversation," Solana told reporters in Brussels.
The capital of Guinea, Conakry, was at a standstill but calm on Wednesday, two days after security forces fired on protesting students and killed 18. Tens of thousands of high school students rioted on Monday after their final exams were cancelled because of a nationwide work stoppage.
Teachers need to ensure that their colleagues behave professionally, a teachers’ union said on Wednesday in reaction to a South African Human Rights Commission report according to which violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, is widespread in schools.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) ”ongoing marginalisation” by the tripartite alliance aggravates unemployment and poverty, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday. Vavi told a press briefing in Johannesburg that the African National Congress-led alliance continues to marginalise some of its members.
A 53-year-old man climbing a fruit tree in a village in northern Malaysia had a narrow escape when he was shot and wounded by a friend who mistook him for a monkey, a report said on Tuesday. The man was putting protective coverings on jackfruits in an orchard owned by his friend.
A 29-year-old blockman from Meyers Park, Pretoria, was referred for mental observation by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court for a second time on Wednesday. Daniel Petrus van der Walt was arrested after he had allegedly confessed that he killed 20-year-old Marlene Mauer with a hammer.
A rat that bumbled into one of Cambodia’s largest power plants was blamed for blacking out the entire capital, Phnom Penh, and much of surrounding Kandal province over the weekend, a power official said on Tuesday. Millions were cast into darkness on Sunday night.
A handful of Mentos candy dropped in a Diet Coke bottle produces an explosive soda geyser — and a multitude of internet videos of giddy people trying the experiment in backyards and bathtubs. Hundreds of videos have sprung up of people slipping Mentos into soda bottles and watching the Coke fountain jet about 2m high.