Until last summer, Nguyen Thi Hanh used to watch flocks of ducks waddle across the road outside her house, holding up cars as they wandered about a tranquil village in which almost every family earned a major share of their income by raising fowl. Since an nearby outbreak of bird flu, however, the ducks have been slaughtered.
Newsweek magazine on Sunday admitted it had got its facts wrong on a story alleging that American military interrogators had desecrated copies of the Qur’an, after a week of protests about the article left at least 17 people dead and more than 100 injured. The report last week sparked protests across the Islamic world.
The British government clashed openly with Uzbekistan on Sunday over the violent suppression of a protest in the former Soviet republic that the British Foreign Office said had left hundreds dead. Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, said on Sunday there had been a ”clear abuse of human rights”.
Not content with winning the recent Car of the Year competition with its S40, Volvo SA has added another couple of strings to its bow in the form of the V40 2,0 turbo diesel sedan and the S50 station wagon with the same engine. The 2,0 diesel models are probably among the most refined versions on the market in that capacity.
There’s that addictive pop-pop-pop as you lift your foot off the loud pedal and the engine goes into over-run. There’s no waste gate to speak of, and that excess pressure created by the now very refined supercharger has only one place to go through one of the four, 399,5cc capacity cylinders. The Minni Cooper S has undergone some changes and motorists are unlikely to realise that under that familiar body, there’s a whole new beast.
Regulatory authorities are to hold a public hearing into an application by Cell C to reduce its empowerment shareholding. CellSaf, the empowerment consortium that owns 40% of the country’s smallest cellphone network operator, wants to sell a tranche of shares amounting to 15% of Cell C to Lanun, a Saudi investment firm, for about $180-million.
It is noteworthy that at a time when many people have given up on the church and some aspects of its moral teaching, the death of John Paul II and the election of the new pope should have reignited the debate on the question of the Catholic Church and condoms.
The infectiously energetic television advert for the new Audi A4 was an indication that the brand was making a concerted effort to shake off its somewhat sober image. The edgy electric guitar riffs, the creative interpretation of human faces on just about any object you looked at gave one the feeling that significant changes had been made to the new A4.
"Reasons that are fundamental to the building of our South African nation and democracy compel me to respond to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s report and editorial [‘Housing scandal man advising Sisulu’, April 29]," writes Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu.
The first Volkswagen Golf GTI was conceptualised over sandwiches and beer by some rather recalcitrant Germans back in March 1973. The first GTI, weighing just 820kg, made its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1975 as a project car, but the public response was so strong that VW had to put it into "limited" production.