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/ 19 November 2004
The mayor of the Dutch city of Maastricht wants to ban all 16 cannabis cafés in the city centre and set up a ”weed boulevard” to keep drug tourists and criminals out of town, his spokesperson said on Friday. Maastricht is close to the border with both Belgium and Germany and attracts almost 1,5-million drug tourists yearly.
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/ 19 November 2004
Authorities in Germany, where animal rights are anchored in the federal Constitution, issued a disability pass on Friday to a wheelchair-bound pooch. Eight-year-old Teddy, a wire-haired dachshund, will now be permitted to roam freely off-leash in his custom-made canine wheelchair in any and all public parks.
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/ 19 November 2004
Thousands of Zimbabweans are crossing the border into South Africa, and they face a tough life on the other side. Refugees say they are disappointed by the lack of solidarity shown by South Africans. On Friday, the Solidarity Peace Trust launched a report that examines these refugees’ situation in South Africa.
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/ 19 November 2004
Paul Thabang Khumalo, who murdered the station commissioner at Diepkloof police station in Soweto in May 2002, was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 27 years in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday. Judge Geraldine Borchers said Khumalo’s remorse was a sham. He is a violent man who should be removed from society, she said.
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/ 19 November 2004
Punk-rock Green Day has identified the need to evolve to stay on top. On <i>American Idiot</i>, they combine a solid helping of social conscience with a range of rock sounds and tempo changes, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
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/ 19 November 2004
The Black Eyed Peas are bringing their popular brand of conscious hip-hop to Jozi and iKapa. "We had a dream to become pioneers of a music that is positive." The global pop sensation spoke to Andy Davis about their past, their politics and their peers.
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/ 19 November 2004
The statutory Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has called for comment from interested parties on its discussion document issued this month regarding fixed-line telephone price-cap regulations. Icasa spokesperson Vimla Maistry on Friday said the closing date for comments is December 7.
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/ 19 November 2004
Iraqi forces, backed by United States soldiers, stormed one of the major Sunni Muslim mosques in Baghdad after Friday prayers, opening fire and killing at least three people, witnesses said. Another raid overnight at a hospital allegedly used by insurgents in Mosul led to three arrests, the military said.
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/ 19 November 2004
A man campaigning for the rights of fathers in separation and divorce cases was arrested on Friday after he handcuffed himself to Britain’s minister for children’s affairs, police said. The minister, Margaret Hodge, was making a keynote address at a conference on family law in the northern English city of Manchester.
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/ 19 November 2004
Human-rights groups on Friday urged the Congo’s government to ratify an international treaty that would protect the rights of pygmies, many of whom live in virtual slavery in the country. Most of the Congo’s estimated 600 000 pygmies live deep in its north-eastern forests, eking out an existence by hunting and gathering.