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/ 8 December 2004
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) made an urgent appeal on Wednesday for ,2-million in food aid for 118 000 refugees in Ethiopia over the next six months. An additional 8 500 tonnes of cereals, vegetable oil, pulses, salt and blended foods were urgently needed to feed the refugees.
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/ 8 December 2004
Ukraine’s Parliament passed a controversial plan to weaken the presidency on Wednesday, breaking a tense stand-off between outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and the opposition. The vote was hailed in Ukraine and abroad as a breakthrough in the political crisis that has split this strategic nation in two polarised camps.
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/ 8 December 2004
Disciplinary action will be taken against school principals who withhold end-of-year reports, the Western Cape education minister vowed on Wednesday. He said his office has been receiving calls from anxious parents saying some principals are refusing to hand out reports because the parents have not paid some or all of their school fees.
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/ 8 December 2004
A Japanese firm said on Wednesday it has created a jellyfish-shaped robot that can alert homeowners to burglars or housesit for their pets — and, when not at work, lounge about and be ”beautiful”. Roborior, a transparent robot that can glow blue or red, is equipped with a camera, speaker and hi-tech sensor.
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/ 8 December 2004
Crime will continue to be a lucrative business in South Africa until the massive shortages of personnel and resources in the South African Police Service’s detective service are addressed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The average case load per detective in South Africa is about 100 dockets.
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/ 8 December 2004
State-owned South African transport group Transnet has reported an interim pre-tax profit for the six months to the end of September of R774-million, resulting from a 5,3% rise in turnover to R22,4-billion, after posting a loss of R1,06-billion in the year-earlier period.
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/ 8 December 2004
Zimbabwe produced just a third of the food it needs this season, the main opposition said on Wednesday, predicting the hunger crisis will worsen in the impoverished Southern African country. The opposition warned that half the nation’s 12,5-million population faces deepening hunger in coming months.
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/ 8 December 2004
Not so long ago in a galaxy 8km southeast of Philadelphia, Mike Degirolamo had a plan to build a large model of a vehicle from the Star Wars movies. But the authority in his sector sought to suppress it. The plan was to build a six metre by three-and-a-half metre model of a Jawa Sandcrawler, a relatively obscure icon from the original Star Wars film.
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/ 8 December 2004
A British sailor made waves in a round-the-world yachting competition on Tuesday when he used his radio to propose to his sweetheart, who is also a rival competitor. The famously rough seas at Cape Horn, on the southern tip of South America, did nothing to dampen the ardour of Graham Thompson (31) who asked 30-year-old girlfriend Laura Alexander the crucial question.
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/ 8 December 2004
Intrepid comic book reporter Tintin, who began his adventures 75 years ago, looks like a young teen because of a growth hormone deficiency and the effects of too many blows to the head, according to a study released on Tuesday. The study was written by Claude Cyr, a pediatrician at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, with help from two experts — his sons Antoine (five) and Louis-Olivier (seven).