Striptease is an art and should therefore be exempt from value-added tax (VAT), a Norwegian court has ruled. The Diamond Go Go Bar in Oslo took the Norwegian state to court after it tried to impose VAT on entry fees to the club. The club’s owner did, however, agree to pay VAT on the cloakroom’s revenues.
The decision to press a land claim was taken by the whole Richtersveld community and not just a section of it, an anthropologist told the Land Claims Court on Wednesday. She was testifying in support of the Richtersvelders’ demand for the return of 85 000ha of diamond-rich land and compensation that could total R2,5-billion.
President Thabo Mbeki will pay a courtesy call on newly installed Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Italy on Friday and Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. Mbeki is also scheduled to hold discussions with his Italian counterpart, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
A new computer virus that has infected scores of computers worldwide has been detected, the NOD 32 company said on Wednesday. The virus, the Sober.O worm, was first detected on Tuesday and has been spreading rapidly via e-mail. It is ”the worst virus onslaught of the year”, said NOD 32 CEO Justin Stanford.
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The Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial ended on Wednesday afternoon with Judge Hillary Squires saying a judgement will not take place before May 30. ”Like all rivers that eventually reach the sea, we have reached the sea,” Squires said at the end of the case.
Jazz musician Robbie Jansen has made a ”miraculous” recovery from a near-comatose condition and is sitting up demanding fruit salad, his relieved record-company executive said on Wednesday. Jansen was admitted to the Tygerberg hospital almost a month ago following his collapse at his home in Elsies River.
Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a senior al-Qaeda suspect, has been arrested in Pakistan, the government said on Wednesday. Al-Libbi, a native of Libya who authorities say is a close associate of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and acted as al-Qaeda’s operational chief in Pakistan, was arrested earlier this week, the government said on Wednesday.
The ever-present threat of a sudden spike in global oil prices, and the resulting impact on slow-growing and struggling economies such as Japan, Germany and France, poses a significant risk to local exporters who rely on those markets for much of their business, says a senior South African economist.
There is "no precise date" for the start-up of the second national operator (SNO) — which will compete with the semi-privatised state telephone operator Telkom, says Minister of Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin. He said such matters as the shareholders’ agreement and business plan are being discussed.
A detailed plan for fighting the increasing number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in Africa was unveiled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Wednesday, according to the global Stop TB Partnership. African and international health and development officials met to discuss the ”spiralling epidemic” of TB.