The shallow and warm waters off a remote port on the Sainte-Mairie island are alive with the sound of music — the eerie wailing of hundreds of humpback whales, who escape the rigours of the Antarctic winter and come here every year to breed and croon.
Rebellious old habits die hard in the northwestern Swiss valley of Val-de-Travers, where the alcoholic drink absinthe, nicknamed the ”green fairy”, is about to become legal again. The lush, forested valley of 12 000 people in the Jura hills near the French border claims to have been the birthplace of absinthe, which was said to make one blind or mad when prohibition took hold in 1908.
The minister of health has played down the target of rolling out anti-retroviral treatment for HIV victims by the end of the year — saying most South Africans prefer to consult traditional healers first before going to a Western health facility. The government had set itself a target of treating 53 000 Aids patients this year.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which has been meeting with African National Congress representatives in Cape Town, says it virulently opposes relaxation of exchange controls — and "speed bumps" should be put in place to protect the economy.
There was a time when the most Doreen Morris could hope for was filling white people’s bellies and cleaning up their mess. To be black in apartheid South Africa was to be limited in opportunity, if not hope, especially when home was a tin shack in a township gangland. But the emerging black middle class now employ their own domestic help.
China will get its first bullfights in the next few months, complete with matadors from Spain, but the bulls will have to come from somewhere else, the government says. Organisers of the bullfights, planned for China’s National Day holidays in early October, had planned to airlift six bulls from Spain for the events.
Like everything built by Adolf Hitler the scale is huge. His Baltic Sea resort Prora for Third Reich workers sprawls 4,5km along pristine beaches on the island of Ruegen — and half of it has just been put up for sale by the German government. Historians say Hitler personally ordered construction of the complex which is a forerunner of mega-resorts opened around the world in the post-World War II era.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) on Thursday ticked higher, after two days of consolidation, on buying interest, with volumes very thin, equity brokers said. By 12.05pm, the all-share index was 0,69% higher. Resources climbed 0,75% and the gold-mining index was 0,71% higher.
Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed memoranda of understanding to ”harmonise” transport and mining development between the two countries. Zimbabwe’s foreign minister Stan Mudenge said on Wednesday the agreements would lead to joint mineral exploration and mining activities in the DRC.
Thousands of cattle in Mozambique’s central Sofala province have been hit by an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis which can also affect humans if they eat contaminated meat, a provincial governor said on Thursday. ”The disease is a serious threat to the economy of the province and to human life as people have generally defied appeals not to eat any meat before being tested by the veterinary experts,” said provincial governor Felicio Zacarias.