New Zealand’s ruling Labour Party seems set to form a new minority government after the Electoral Office confirmed on Saturday it has the biggest number of seats in the nation’s Parliament. Labour took 50 seats in the September 17 election, two more than the main opposition National Party, final election results show.
A Soyuz rocket carrying United States millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and a Russian-American crew lifted off on Saturday from the Central Asian steppes, launching the world’s third space tourist on a two-day journey to the international space station. The rocket streaked into the blue sky with an ear-splitting blast.
There were men with Fu Manchu moustaches. There were contestants with long, flowing Gandalf beards. About 220 contestants from all over the world gathered in Berlin, Germany, on Friday ahead of Saturday’s biannual world beard and moustache championships.
Austria will be given a blunt warning on Sunday that it will be blamed for rupturing 40 years of relations between the European Union and Turkey if it scuppers membership talks. In a sign of widespread irritation with Vienna, Britain’s foreign secretary has summoned his Austrian counterpart for a one-to-one meeting on Sunday night.
United States President George Bush has distanced himself from comments made by a leading Republican crusader on moral values who declared that one way to reduce the crime rate in the US would be to ”abort black babies”. William Bennett had been education secretary under Ronald Reagan and drugs czar under the first George Bush.
Large parts of the Amazon rainforest are at their driest in living memory, a direct consequence, scientists say, of the severe hurricane season off the United States Gulf coast. Rainfall has been significantly below average this year along the Rio Solimoes and the Rio Madeira, two of the major Brazilian tributaries that flow into the Amazon.
Roll up! Roll up! It’s show time in the twilight zone that is North Korea. Take your seats for one of the greatest, strangest, most awe-inspiring political spectacles on Earth. Forget the nukes, forget the poverty, forget the reclusive reputation; this country is going to entertain you like you have never been entertained before. All welcome — even American imperialists and journalists.
The frequency of infection-free blood and not race will be used as the prime risk indictor when collecting or issuing blood, the South African National Blood Service said on Friday. However, for ”sound medical reasons” donors will be asked — voluntarily — to indicate their ethnic group on donor questionnaires.
President Thabo Mbeki paid tribute on Friday to Transkei-born activist Wycliffe Mlungisi ”Wyckie” Tsotsi, who had died earlier this week. ”His death has robbed South Africa and the African continent of a hero of the struggle for liberation, non-racism, non-sexism and justice,” Mbeki said.
President Thabo Mbeki grilled Northern Cape mayors on Friday about underspending on their capital budgets. He also warned that local-level infighting in the African National Congress, which hampers municipal delivery, has to stop. His interventions came during a day-long local government meeting, in Kimberley, with municipal, national and provincial politicians and officials.