Nigeria on Wednesday announced a 25-year plan to venture into space technology by manufacturing and launching locally its own satellite. Science and Technology Minister Turner Isoun said the federal Cabinet had already set up a seven-member ministerial committee to look into the details of the project.
Large areas of the Liberian countryside where former fighters control rubber plantations are ”lawless” and are putting plantation workers and their families at risk, according to a United Nations report. Also fingered are private security guards hired by the rubber companies who ”arrest” and ”detain” illegal rubber tappers.
Australia is so desperate for soldiers that the middle-aged are now being recruited. ”Why can’t we have people who might be well into their 50s, where there’s a whole variety of tasks that might be undertaken that don’t involve flying planes or marching 20km with a backpack?” said Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.
Australia accused Japan and other pro-whaling nations on Thursday of recruiting poor countries to back their push for a resumption of commercial whaling at an international conference next month. Environment Minister Ian Campbell said he fears pro-whaling nations could get the numbers to push through their commercial goal at the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission.
I have seen any number of games that were preceded by choreographed ceremonies involving schoolchildren, acrobats, mime and giant balloons, but I never thought Middlesbrough would feature in one. Yet here they are in the PSV Stadion on Wednesday waiting for some kids in white suits to finish their act.
A new book, Foul, by British journalist Andrew Jennings, exposes the corruption and power plays at world football’s governing body, Fifa. Jennings’s previous investigation into sport, The Lords of the Rings, led to a radical shake-up of the International Olympic Committee.
Senior Zanu-PF leaders loyal to former parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa allegedly met in November 2004 to plot a parliamentary coup that would have seen Parliament order President Robert Mugabe to resign, the High Court heard on Thursday.
In the brouhaha about the Ministry of Justice’s amendments to the power of the judiciary is one clause that has all but been ignored. Currently, the position is that ”the Constitutional Court … is the highest court in all constitutional matters”. If, as is expected, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is passed later this year, the words ”in all constitutional matters” will be deleted.
Cerebos, a local investor, has announced a R85-million expansion and relocation project in the Coega Industrial Development Zone in the Eastern Cape’s Nelson Mandela metro. Managing director Len Chandler said on Thursday the expansion meant the company would remain in the metro, retaining and even increasing jobs for the local communities.
Mittal Steel South Africa reported headline earnings for the quarter ended March 31 of R684-million — a 21% decline on the previous quarter. The company — formerly Iscor — said this was 57% down on the same period last year. Headline earnings a share for the quarter were 153, down from 195 cents in the previous quarter.