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/ 14 October 2005
Heads of state from central and south-east Europe insisted on Friday that European Union enlargement continue and include Turkey as well as the Balkan states that emerged from the bloody wars of the 1990s. Fifteen leaders are attending a summit in Zagreb to discuss European integration and expansion
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/ 14 October 2005
The European Parliament on Friday called for an end to harrassment of opposition groups in Ethiopia and warned of possible aid cuts to the impoverished Horn of Africa nation if it did not stop. The Strasbourg-based legislature deplored the government’s treatment of the opposition since disputed May elections that European Union observers said failed to meet international standards.
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/ 14 October 2005
World oil prices fell in New York on Friday but held firm in London, as a report on crude stockpiles in the United States suggested weakening demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, shed 42 cents to ,66 per barrel in electronic trading.
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/ 14 October 2005
A handwritten score of one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most revolutionary works has been discovered by a librarian cleaning out a cabinet in a seminary in Pennsylvania after being missing for more than a century. The work was described by scholars of the German composer on Thursday as an ”amazing find” and ”extremely important”.
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/ 14 October 2005
A 50-year-old foreigner died in the domestic hall of Johannesburg International airport on Friday when he plunged off the banister of a moving walkway into the arrivals hall 10m below, said the Airports Company South Africa. He had climbed on the banister to move around an obstruction on the walkway.
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/ 14 October 2005
The Pretoria High Court has refused an application by Pretoria advocate Dirk Prinsloo to separate his sex-crimes trial from that of his former girlfriend and co-accused Cezanne Visser. Prinsloo had failed to prove that the continuation of a joint trial would cause him to suffer real prejudice, Judge Essop Patel ruled on Friday.
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/ 14 October 2005
More than 30 000 South Africans have signed a petition on a website called <i>Stop the Bill</i> against a draft law to reform the Road Accident Fund (RAF). Hein Kaiser, one of the organisers of the petition, says "compensation is now limited and the RAF is taking away compensation for people with minor injuries".
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/ 14 October 2005
European Union veterinary experts are meeting on Friday to discuss moves to halt the spread of bird flu as the continent awaits test results from a second suspected outbreak. British scientists on Thursday said the virus found in Turkish poultry was the H5N1 strain that health experts fear could mutate into a human disease and kill millions of people worldwide.
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/ 14 October 2005
While Morocco continues deporting masses of West African migrants in the face of international condemnation, a pan-African human rights group is calling on the United Nations to investigate charges of rights violations linked to border control. The Moroccan government acknowledged on Thursday that its armed forces had shot at illegal immigrants trying to scale a barrier between Africa and Europe last week.
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/ 14 October 2005
Race is rearing its ugly head in the rural Western Cape town of Vredendal, an African National Congress stronghold. There is a backlog of 8Â 000 houses in the Matzikama municipality and 500 families still use night soil buckets. But, rather than erupting in street protests, beefs about basic services have sparked recriminations between coloureds and Africans.