Dutch bar flies who cannot wait until they are home to relieve themselves are in for a surprise in the southern town of Tilburg where a restaurant owner has put up a cold shower to discourage peeing in public, a newspaper reported on Friday. The shower head is equipped with sensors.
Japan’s capital has a 90% chance of being devastated by a major earthquake some time in the next 50 years, according to a study by a government panel. The study, released earlier this week, marked the latest attempt by scientists to address one of this quake-prone country’s most pressing concerns: when the next ”big one” will strike.
Controversy surrounding Zimbabwean Information Minister Jonathan Moyo’s purchase of the Patterson farm in the Mazowe district has deepened amid disclosures that he violated government policy and set a bad precedent for land reform. Moyo is also entangled in a row over the subdivision of a farm in Hwange where illegal poaching is reported to be rampant.
Sudan’s government on Thursday defiantly dismissed a United Nations deadline for it to disarm its proxy militia in the Darfur region, insisting it would resolve the conflict there through ongoing African Union peace talks. On the fourth day of talks between the government and Darfur’s rebel groups, the parties put a row over disarmament to one side in order to decide how to tackle a mounting humanitarian crisis in the western region.
With the 2005 parliamentary election in Zimbabwe beckoning, never has the Matabeleland region witnessed so many promises of development from President Robert Mugabe’s government. Development projects worth about a trillion-Zimbabwean dollars have been promised.
A senior health official welcomed the Cape High Court’s decision on Friday to dismiss an application aimed at overturning the medicine-pricing regulations, saying it will benefit the South African consumer. He said the judgement means that savings realised from the manufacturing side will now be passed on to the consumer.
Parliament has taken legal action against five MPs after they defaulted on repaying owed travel monies, but it remains mum on the names of those implicated in the multimillion-rand travel voucher scam. Ten MPs have signed acknowledgement of debts following the liquidation of ITC Travel, whose director, Estelle Aggujaro, is one of the seven travel agents arrested by the Scorpions in July.
Within hours of arriving in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital, visitors are likely to be followed by informers, stopped by the army and arrested by police, who will strip the film from their cameras, follow them to their hotel, question their motives for being there, and interrogate anyone they have talked to. John Vidal recently visited Equatorial Guinea, one of the few Western journalists to do so in recent years.
The South African Communist Party will from next month pressure both the government and commercial agriculture to accelerate land and agrarian reform. The announcement coincides with Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza’s appointment this week of a panel of experts to study the extent and impact of foreign land ownership in the country.
Tensions in the government are sharpening over controversial plans to mine one of the country’s most ecologically valuable areas. Conflicting plans for developing Pondoland in the Eastern Cape will be challenged next week at the Johannesburg +2 Conference, called on the second anniversary of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.