Expensive international call roaming charges, long the bane of overseas travellers, could soon become a thing of the past. Since April, a few thousand pioneering owners of palmtop computers have avoided the additional fees charged by cellphone operators when they travel abroad by making free — or extremely low-cost — calls over the internet.
Japan and South Africa agreed on Thursday to consider a pact to promote trade, raising the possibility the fast-growing nation will become the first African country to have a free trade pact with Japan. Japan’s exports to South Africa surged 33,9% to 314,4-billion yen (,8-billion) in 2004, with growing shipments of automobiles and auto parts.
A Chinese herbalist will go without food for 50 days in full public view to prove he didn’t pull a fast one when he performed a similar feat last year, state media said on Wednesday. Chen Jianmin plans to live in a glass box placed on a stone platform in central Wuhan city from September 8, consuming only water.
A senior British judge on Wednesday called on the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair to halt all deportations of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe pending a further High Court hearing. The comments came as scores of Zimbabwean asylum seekers continued a hunger strike to protest against being forced to return to their troubled country.
A pioneer of handheld computing who claims that Microsoft pressured companies to boycott his new invention has sued the software giant for antitrust violations between 1987 and 1994, the San Jose Mercury News reported on Wednesday.
Bid leader Sebastian Coe and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are being credited with masterminding London’s stunning upset victory over Paris for the 2012 Olympics. As Paris bid chiefs start an inquiry into how they fell from being firm favourites to end up losers, IOC members were singing the praises of the London leaders.
During her first five years in the navy, Jen Kopfstein avoided conversations about her personal life, taking the military’s ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays seriously. ”I felt like I was being forced to lie and having to be dishonest,” Kopfstein said. ”I could never share anything about my family or my home life or even say what I did on the weekend. It is hurtful to do that.”
Riot police enforced a wide security zone early on Thursday around a campsite housing thousands of anti-G8 protesters, hoping to avoid a repeat of violence that broke out on the opening day of the summit.
The R62 between Worcester and Robertson in the Boland is to open again on Thursday morning after it was closed when about 300 people blocked the route with burning tyres and dumped debris to protest the lack of service delivery to the De Doorns township.
A New York Times journalist was jailed for up to four months for contempt on Wednesday after she refused to reveal the source in an investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s name. Judith Miller was sent to a Washington DC jail for a term that will last until October, unless she relents and reveals her source.