Australia will not use trade sanctions to pressure Japan to abandon its plan to kill more whales in Antarctica. It will also not use force to keep Japanese whaling ships out the region, Prime Minister John Howard said on Tuesday. Japan wants its annual catch of minke whales raised and proposes to start taking humpback whales.
Nato on Tuesday moved closer to approving non-combat aid for the African Union’s beleaguered peacekeeping force in the Sudanese region of Darfur. The North Atlantic Council of alliance ambassadors said they approved the ”initial military options” for possible Nato support for the peacekeeping mission and said their efforts would centre on military transport, training and planning.
Most rural households in Zimbabwe will harvest nothing this year amid a worsening food crisis, a famine watchdog announced on Tuesday ahead of a visit to the Southern African country by the head of the United Nations food programme.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile has thrown his weight behind a call by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee for South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen and other senior figures in the union’s management committee to step down.
Bad news continued to pile up for Germany and its beleaguered Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Tuesday, as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development slashed its growth forecasts and investor confidence slid on concerns that a global slowdown could bring the stuttering German economy to a standstill.
Italy has ordered 30 South African public order vehicles for its paramilitary Carabinieri police force, the vehicle manufacturer said on Tuesday. The order, from Iveco Defence Vehicle Division with BAE Systems, is for 30 RG-12 troop carriers worth about R64-million. Deliveries will take place early next year.
A United States man was on Monday sentenced to 600 hours of community service and ordered to pay more than $13 000 (R84 600) for trying to sell an antique Hawaiian skull in an online auction. In the sale notice, Hasson said he had snuck on to the beach with friends and uncovered an entire skeleton, but only kept the skull.
The old East German Trabant, widely reviled as the worst car made to date, had its day in the sun on Monday when 50 of them spluttered along in a <i>concours d’elegance</i>, trailing their telltale wake of oily blue smoke. The procession in the Bulgarian town of Beloslav, coincided with a literature and book fair.
To suffer Palestinian flags strung up in victory from abandoned Jewish homes or incur global wrath for dynamiting the legacy of a 38-year occupation. That is what Israel must decide when uprooting settlers from nearly 2 000 homes in the Gaza Strip this summer.
Astronomers have discovered a planet that is twice as big as Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, New Zealand researchers at the University of Auckland revealed on Tuesday. They said the newly discovered planet is 15 000 light years away from the Earth, making it one of the most distant discovered to date.