It is one of Switzerland’s most picturesque ski resorts. But over the past two decades the Gurschen glacier above the village of Andermatt has been melting, forcing locals at the beginning of every ski season to build an artificial snow ramp. Now, however, the resort’s organisers have come up with a novel way of protecting their mountain from global warming — they have wrapped it in clingfilm.
At least 10 people were killed and more than 20 injured in a bomb attack on a market in a Shia district of Baghdad on Thursday. The blast followed the deaths of 71 people in a series of suicide bombings on Wednesday. Of the 135 car bombings last month, more than half were suicide missions.
Volkswagen cannot understand the rationale for a strike at a Gauteng parts depot because nobody has lost jobs. ”Volkswagen of South Africa cannot understand the reasoning behind this unnecessary strike which will lead to great financial hardship for the 62 employees involved who are losing money every day they remain on strike,” a statement from the company read.
As Ethiopia prepares for weekend elections, its human rights record has come under increasing criticism from watchdogs who believe the poll has already been marred by myriad abuses. Human Rights Watch accused Addis Ababa of taking advantage of a fight against the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front to justify the torture, imprisonment and sustained harassment of its critics.
The 62 South African alleged mercenaries in Zimbabwe will be transported to South Africa in Zimbabwean government vehicles, their lawyer Alwyn Griebenow said on Thursday. ”We offered to supply a bus to bring them back, but it has been turned down because they [government officials] say they are a security risk,” he said.
At least 75 people have been reported killed and thousands more displaced in southern Sudan’s Lakes State since interclan violence, sparked by cattle rustling and disputes over pasture and water, erupted on April 24, aid workers said on Wednesday.
Family can be embarrassing. In the analogue age, at least, we could be creative in claiming descent from aristocrats or sheep-stealers. The digital world lays all our secrets bare. We know we are all descended from a single woman who lived 150 000 years ago in Africa. The question that intrigues us is, what happened in between?
Technology hit the headlines for the wrong reasons again last week, as a gang of British software pirates who characterised themselves as latter-day Robin Hoods found themselves in jail. When four of the pirates from the international group known as DrinkorDie were jailed for a total of seven-and-a-half years, many focused on the man who got the toughest sentence — a ”City banker”.
South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen and three other top officials in the organisation face a possibly crippling blow to their leadership positions when a special general council meeting of SA Rugby is called within the next 10 days. At that meeting, the positions of SA Rugby’s top brass will come under intense scrutiny.
Australian Open champion Marat Safin became embroiled in an argument with an old friend and the umpire before crashing out of the second round of the Masters Series in Hamburg on Wednesday. The volatile Russian lost 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to Juan Carlos Ferrero, the former French Open champion from Spain.