Sick of sky-high prices and lengthy waits for operations, growing numbers of Britons are going under the surgeon’s knife overseas, in destinations like South Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Cheaper operations are enticing more than 10Â 000 Britons per year abroad, some travelling huge distances to factor in some fun in the sun — and still saving on the price of British private sector surgery.
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Members of the African National Congress evaded the media on Sunday evening when they changed the venue for their national executive committee meeting from Luthuli House to the Esselen Park training centre in Kempton Park. Jacob Zuma’s role in the ANC was expected to be discussed at the meeting.
He has been called a terrorist by Washington but for three and a half hours on Sunday in London he could do no wrong. An adoring audience of British left-wingers and the Latin American diaspora cheered, clapped, sang and laughed as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced United States President Bush and capitalism and praised London mayor Ken Livingstone and the Pope.
At least 67 people were killed over the weekend in the largest organised attack yet by drug gangs against Brazilian police and security forces, officials confirmed early on Monday. The apparent offensive by organised crime groups was launched on Friday night and continued until Sunday in Brazil’s commercial capital, São Paulo, and outlying regions of São Paulo state.
Delivering judgement in the Jacob Zuma rape trial, Judge Willem van der Merwe, inspired by Kipling, aimed a final comment squarely at the former deputy president: "If you can control your body and your sexual urges, then you are a man, my son."
Embraced by Nazi Germany and perfected in apartheid South Africa, Sasol’s Fischer-Tropsch process, which converts gas or coal to liquid, is now the sexiest thing in energy. In a post-9/11 world beset by sustained high fuel costs, concerns over energy security and growing environmental pressures, Sasol finds itself alone as the market leader in the conversion of both coal and gas to liquid fuels.
One of human civilisation’s best moments must have been the day when two foes decided that, instead of clobbering each other with clubs to decide whose argument was better, they would defer to a wise elder to arbitrate. And even more importantly, that they both would live with the sage’s decision.
Danny Halamish feels abandoned by Israel, with the government intending to dismantle his home in the wildcat Jewish outpost of Maale Rehavam in the heart of the occupied West Bank. ”Every day that passes makes my being Israeli less meaningful to me. I have to think twice before I say I’m Israeli,” says Halamish.
It has soft lights, gleaming red and blue surfaces and a soothing video projection on the wall showing swirling underwater bubbles. Welcome not to an art hotel, but to Europe’s trendiest public toilet. The super-loo, which opened in Berlin on May 4, is the last word in chic public architecture.
World stock markets finally expunged the memories of one of the worst bear markets in history recently when they surpassed the levels reached ahead of the collapse of the dotcom bubble in 2000. The most widely used yardstick of equity performance around the globe, showed that a recovery in developed economies coupled with boom conditions in emerging markets has created a new record for shares.