Paddlers taking part in the 53rd edition of the Hansa Powerade Dusi, which takes place next week between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, can expect to be drug-tested. ”We will not tolerate drug cheats,” said Cameron Mackenzie, chairperson of the organising committee.
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Two South African opposition parties have expressed concern at their exclusion from the South African government’s observer delegation to this week’s Palestinan presidential poll. However it appears that there is still an 11th-hour chance for opposition representation on the mission.
A total of 740 South Africans were still unaccounted for after last week’s tsunami disaster in South Asia, says the foreign affairs department. Another six, who were reported to have been in the direct path of the giant waves, were feared dead.
So, 2005 is remorsefully underway, and many of us are truculently trickling back from vac. Still, it’s not too late for some new year’s resolutions — a wish list of what could happen in regard to media in the coming months. I accept that long ago some people resolved to never make any resolutions for an anno novus. But bear with this Initiative for Media Improvement in 2005.
Rescue workers freed an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin from a small lagoon where the Asian tsunami had dumped it — returning it to the Andaman Sea in a rare story of survival 10 days after the waves crushed tourist resorts in the surrounding Khao Lak area. The fate of a second, smaller dolphin — believed to be the larger one’s calf — is unclear.
A car bomb exploded outside a police academy south of Baghdad on Wednesday during a graduation ceremony, killing at least 20 people, a police official said. The bomb exploded outside a gate of the academy in Hillah, about 95km south of Baghdad, said police Captain Hady Hatef.
DNA tests will be conducted on two women claiming to be the biological mothers of twin baby boys found abandoned in a Johannesburg minibus taxi on December 10. The driver noticed them after he had dropped off all his passengers. Seven women then claimed to be the mother of the boys.
South African Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka wants diamond producers to retain a sizeable proportion of rough diamonds in the countries in which they were mined. She was echoing remarks by the Botswana government where Debswana has been pressured to promote job creation in secondary industries.
Philippines police have been ordered to take English grammar lessons and lose weight to improve their crime-fighting abilities, the national police chief said on Wednesday. Police will also be made to undergo leadership and stress-management courses, Interior Undersecretary Margarita Cojuangco said.