Austrian authorities are investigating whether a university committed a crime when it used corpses as part of research to develop better crash-test dummies, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. Authorities suspect that researchers at the Technical University of Graz might have violated the dignity of the dead by using bodies in tests.
A German anatomist whose exhibit of preserved corpses has drawn international controversy went to court on Tuesday to appeal against a court ruling that said he was not qualified to use the title ”professor”. Gunther von Hagens’s Body Worlds show has generated curiosity and outrage, drawing several million visitors worldwide.
Union members spared Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour any discomfort on Tuesday when he addressed a range of issues at a community imbizo (meeting) in Mitchells Plain. ”We don’t want to speak, we would be guillotined back at work,” said a Prisons and Police Civil Rights Union member.
One of South Africa’s large spice manufacturers, Robertsons, said on Tuesday it has withdrawn some of its products from supermarket shelves following the Sudan Red dye scare. ”The products were withdrawn as an extreme precautionary measure because they use similar raw materials to the Robertsons peri peri spice withdrawn on Friday,” the company said.
A typhoid epidemic has returned but the taps installed 15 years ago still can’t provide drinking water to the residents of Kinshasa’s crowded Kimbanseke area.
Their plight and that of millions of others worldwide is the focus of the United Nations World Water Day on Tuesday.
A fourth-quarter recovery lifted junior miner Western Areas’ year-end results into the black for the 12 months ended December. The group said on Tuesday that substantial revaluation gains of R307-million on dollar liabilities (in accordance with AC133) boosted the results of Western Areas for the fourth quarter.
Shares in media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications and Naspers fell on Tuesday on the back of different factors, a trader said. "I’d say the fall was unbundling-related for Johncom shares, whereas with Naspers we are seeing a continuation of profit-taking," a trader said.
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South African civil society groups came back from Zimbabwe disillusioned about the state of democracy in the country, they said on Tuesday. The six-member delegation said that ”only the most optimistic MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] politicians” could hope for political change through free and fair elections.
A group of lawmakers in Malawi plan to launch a bid to impeach President Bingu wa Mutharika later this month, alleging that he violated the Constitution, a party spokesperson said on Tuesday. Discussions to impeach the president were held last weekend at the residence of former president and United Democratic Front leader Bakili Muluzi, who is engaged in an open feud with Mutharika.
Somalia’s transitional government-in-exile met in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday in a bid to bridge deep divisions over plans to relocate to the war-shattered nation that are now in chaos, officials said. But with inter-clan tensions still running high, there was no indication that Tuesday’s meeting would yield any immediate consensus, the officials said.