Zimbabwean officials want custom duties to be paid for about 6 000 blankets given by South Africans to victims of the government’s recent mass demolitions campaign, an aid organisation said on Wednesday. Aid workers have been barred from distributing the blankets until the matter is resolved.
PetroSA, the state oil and gas company, will ”have nothing to do” with Imvume Management in future and it has been ordered to pay back monies owed to it, says PetroSA chairperson Popo Molefe. The former North West premier faced tough questions from opposition MPs in the standing committee on public accounts on Wednesday morning.
The Bush administration on Tuesday put forward a plan to make the United States’s burgeoning fleet of pickup trucks, minivans and some sports utility vehicles go further on a gallon of gas in response to the soaring cost of petrol. But the plan, which would not be implemented until 2008, was condemned by environmental groups because the largest SUVs would not be affected.
It took two hours to drag it aboard, but the battle was worth it: a tuna fish the ”size of a cow” appears to have netted a New Zealand angler a place in the record books. The 6ft to 8ft-long Pacific bluefin tuna, weighing 268kg, is believed to be the largest of its species landed by anglers.
It remains the greatest mystery in Australian political history: did the then prime minister Harold Holt drown while swimming at his favourite beach or was he spirited away in a Chinese submarine? Almost four decades after Holt vanished at Cheviot Beach, south-east of Melbourne, an inquest is trying to solve one of the country’s oldest political whodunits.
Following statements on Wednesday by PetroSA, the state oil and gas company, that it will "have nothing to do" with Imvume Management in future and that Imvume has been ordered to pay back monies owed to it, the Democratic Alliance said in a statement that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) must now investigate Imvume.
Fires and floods continue to leave a trail of death and destruction across Europe, with some countries experiencing devastating floods, while authorities in Spain and Portugal battle raging wildfires. Record flooding in southern Germany surged downstream from the Alps on Wednesday as rescue workers raced to save cities and towns in its path.
Cooler temperatures and higher air humidity levels helped firefighters in parched Portugal on Wednesday contain more than a dozen blazes that raged across the country, but officials cautioned that the risk of new fires remained high. Five fires were burning out of control in the thick-wooded centre and north of the country.
Iraqi leaders tried on Wednesday to persuade furious Sunni Arabs to sign up to the draft Constitution, a day before the charter goes to Parliament where conservative Shi’ites and secularist Kurds can ensure its victory. Some Sunni negotiators have even called the country’s post-Saddam Hussein Constitution it ”illegal”.
Denel will have to make tough calls if it is to survive, its new chief executive, Shaun Liebenberg, said on Tuesday. Addressing the media in Pretoria on the company’s future plans, he said nothing is sacred and even pet projects such as the Rooivalk attack helicopter will need to perform or be canned.