Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira wants his team to play with a smile on their faces at this year’s World Cup — so has ruled out imposing a sex ban. While Parreira’s predecessor Luis Felipe Scolari ran a famously strict regime during the 2002 finals, a more relaxed mood will prevail in Germany — and that includes as much sex as his players want.
Workers have abandoned a third attempt to cap a poisonous gas leak from a drilling site in south-western China that has forced the evacuation of almost 15 000 residents, state media reported on Thursday. Officials said they were struggling to raise supplies and funds for the evacuees, lending a note of urgency to the capping work.
Rampaging hippopotamuses have destroyed crops of resettled and communal farmers in Masvingo in the past few weeks, Zimbabwe’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. It said some farmers had now lost all hope of harvesting anything this season.
Zimbabwe, known for its spectacular Victoria Falls and game parks, suffered a 49% drop in tourism revenue last year, compared with 2004, a state daily reported on Thursday. Tourist arrivals from overseas declined by 39% in 2005 from the previous year, while those from Africa also went down 11%.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile is keeping his distance from the controversy over the proposed Green Point soccer stadium, his spokesperson Bongi Sishi said on Thursday. He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Thursday afternoon between Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, and the Fifa local organising committee, which hopes to allay Zille’s concerns over the project.
Africa must impose severe punishment on mercenaries and terrorists to stamp out the scourge, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said late on Wednesday. Obiang arrived on Wednesday for a three-day state visit to Zimbabwe aimed at deepening cooperation after Harare two years ago thwarted an alleged coup against the leader.
Growth in the use of the internet has come off its sizzling pace, even as people become more dependent on cyberspace for work and leisure, a global survey showed on Wednesday. Ipsos Insight’s Face of the Web study showed the global online population grew just 5% last year, well behind 2004’s 20% growth rate.
Apparently, Apple Computer is listening. In a world where hearing problems are real and lawyers are looking to make gadget providers liable, Apple issued a software update on Wednesday for its recent iPod models — the nano and the video-capable iPod — allowing users to set how loud their digital music players can go.
Google said on Wednesday that it has ironed out the final details of its expanded alliance with America Online (AOL), clearing the way for the online search-engine leader to invest -billion in its biggest advertising partner. The two companies signed a March 24 definitive agreement to seal a deal originally announced in December.
Police in The Hague caught three drunk drivers all behind the wheel of the same car within hours of each other early on Wednesday, police said in a statement. The series started when a 40-year-old man was stopped in a routine traffic control on Wednesday morning. He failed a breathalyser test and while police fined him, one of his passengers got behind the wheel and drove off.