Terrorists are sizing up the City of London, Europe’s premier financial centre, and an attack on the teeming district is only a matter of time, its chief of police warned on Wednesday. A debate continues to rage over how to deal with hard-line Islamists suspected of promoting terrorism among Britain’s 1,6-million Muslims.
South Africa is rolling out a new lightning detection system to track the atmospheric phenomenon across the country. ”The need for real-time lightning information to supplement the advanced high spatial and temporal weather radar and satellite systems in a lightning-prone country is regarded as an essential component to the services required by the South African community,” said South African Weather Services spokesperson Bheki Zwane.
I was watching a programme on Ghengis Khan recently, and with Women’s Day having just passed, it made me realise that at least in some societies women have made tremendous advances. In Khan’s day, 800 years ago, women captured in battle were part of the spoils of victory. Khan’s first wife and mother of three of his sons was one of these spoils of battle.
Waterborne weenie waving has become an unwanted side dish at a waterside restaurant in a popular tourist haunt across the bay from San Francisco, the manager lamented humorously on Tuesday. ”Most of the diners think it is quite comical,” said Jeff Scharosch, manager of The Spinnaker restaurant in the town of Sausalito.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday threatened to close several local newspapers if they persist in publishing conspiracy theories about the death of Sudanese Vice President John Garang. At a memorial ceremony for the seven Ugandan crew who died with Garang, Museveni said such reports were a threat to regional security and that he would not tolerate them.
Sixty-eight striking municipal workers were arrested in Knysna on Wednesday and at least 27 more in Cape Town as violence surrounding a countrywide pay protest continued. The incidents come as the South African Municipal Workers’ Union considers legal action against police who have intervened in its protests.
He has been found guilty of a crime he did not commit, Simon Mathebula told the Phalaborwa Circuit Court on Wednesday during deliberations on the sentence he should receive for tossing farmworker Nelson Chisale to lions in Hoedspruit last year. ”I did not even see the corpse … of the deceased,” Mathebula said.
Ferrari is testing its new eight-cylinder engine this week for the first time, a sign the defending formula-one champion is looking ahead to next season amid a disappointing 2005. Beginning in 2006, most formula-one teams will be required to use V8 engines, as opposed to the V10s currently in use.
A puppeteer in Britain has been rapped for portraying Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as villains, a report said on Wednesday. American-born Brent de Witt (41) has been scolded for using the pair’s characters in the traditional children’s puppet play <i>Punch and Judy</i>.
New Dutch commercial television channel Talpa is planning to broadcast a show called <i>I Want Your Child and Nothing Else</i> featuring a single woman who gets to choose a sperm donor to father her child, Dutch media reported on Wednesday. The program is initially a one-off that will be aired on August 23.