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/ 24 November 2004
Zimbabwe moved closer to passing a contentious law that would restrict foreign funding of human rights groups, as President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party defeated filibusters by the opposition. In a legislative session that stretched overnight on Tuesday, the majority Zanu-PF party voted down a series of last-minute amendments sought by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
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/ 24 November 2004
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Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik did not pay any personal income tax because his company had made a taxable loss, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. Ahmed Paruk, from auditing firm David Strachan and Taylor, said the decision was made by his audit partner Paul Gearing and accepted by both him and Shaik.
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/ 24 November 2004
About 5Â 000 United States marines, British troops and Iraqi forces launched a new offensive aimed at clearing a swath of insurgent hotbeds across a cluster of dusty, small towns south of Baghdad on Tuesday. Tuesday’s series of raids and house searches was the third large-scale military operation this month aimed at suppressing Iraq’s Sunni Muslim insurgency.
Outcry against ‘excessive force’
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/ 24 November 2004
The Cape High Court on Wednesday rejected alleged coup plotter Mark Thatcher’s bid to quash a planned questioning session by Equatorial Guinea prosecutors. His legal team had argued that the questioning, scheduled to take place before a Cape Town magistrate on Friday, violated Thatcher’s constitutional rights to silence and against self-incrimination.
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/ 24 November 2004
From December 1, it will be possible for some Telkom users to send and receive SMS messages from their landlines. In addition to the spoken message that already can be received through a landline, where a text message is converted into a computer voice, Telkom will offer a service that will enable customers to send and receive text messages. This service will only be available for postpaid users who subscribe to Telkom’s Identical service.
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/ 24 November 2004
The world’s leading IT company, Microsoft, said on Tuesday that it will be lobbying the Bangladesh government to crack down on piracy of its programmes. A pirated copy of a Microsoft programme can be bought for less than a dollar in Bangladesh, where Microsoft has just opened its first office.
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/ 24 November 2004
The next decade will see nations scrambling to build outposts on the moon with each adapting different strategies to use it as a base to explore space, according to scientists attending a conference on lunar exploration. The United States welcomes competition while the Europeans and other national space programs favour a cooperative robotic village lunar base, they said.
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/ 24 November 2004
Nazi war physician Josef Mengele’s last thoughts and views have come to light, including the fact that he did not repent the atrocities he committed, in letters and diary notes recovered from police archives and published on Tuesday in Brazil.
Contents of 85 documents were translated from German to Portugese and have now been published in an exclusive by the Brazilian newspaper Folha.
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/ 24 November 2004
A new partner has been found for Max the gorilla’s ”widow”, Lisa, who has been single since the death of her famous mate in May. Makoko — on permanent loan from the Munster Zoo in Germany — was expected to arrive in South Africa on Friday, Johannesburg Zoo spokesperson Elmarie Loubser said on Wednesday.
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/ 24 November 2004
South African power utility Eskom is experiencing higher-than-expected demand for energy, Matimba Power Station manager Christo van Niekerk said this week. Residential demand for electricity is increasing rapidly due to the increase in the electrification of housing. However, the increase in demand is unlikely to result in power rationing.