The Democratic Alliance has again urged the Speaker of Parliament to publish the list of MPs implicated in the so-called travel scam, involving the alleged fraudulent use of parliamentary travel vouchers. ”The scam surrounding MPs’ travel vouchers is doing great damage to Parliament,” DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said.
An internet engineering firm sent 10 new sales staff to beg on a main shopping street as part of their training in Changchun city, in northeastern China’s Jilin province, state media said on Tuesday. Company owner Li Jinghua said the exercise was designed to teach the new staff to be thick-skinned.
Italian police revealed summer holiday plans of British Prime Minister Tony Blair by inadvertently sending a memo on security measures to Italian media outlets, news agency Ansa reported on Tuesday. Blair’s wife and children will from Thursday spend a few vacation days at the estate of Prince Guicciardini Strozzi.
Cantankerous cartoon character Donald Duck was joined by his rival Mickey Mouse on Monday as the fiery fowl received his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ”Mickey isn’t even jealous,” Walt Disney chief Michael Eisner said. ”And all of our characters, particularly Daisy [Duck], want to thank you very much.”
One of Australia’s largest agricultural competitions was engulfed in scandal on Tuesday after farmers were caught injecting fluids into their animal’s udders to make them look bigger. Security patrolling the Brisbane show ground on Sunday had caught four people injecting Jersey and Holstein dairy cows.
A SN Brussels airliner made an emergency landing after an ”agitated” passenger — a cat — got into the cockpit and attacked the co-pilot, the airline said on Tuesday. The pilot decided to return to Brussels as a precaution, and the 58 passengers left Brussels two hours later on another flight.
Hong Kong justice chiefs have suspended a lawyer who admitted being ”drunk as a monkey” after his giggling and mumbling caused the adjournment of a court case, an official statement said on Tuesday. Roderick Murray clapped, put on his sunglasses, drummed his fingers on his desk and laughed during the court case.
The Moscow diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church has commissioned a church on a truck that will be able to travel across isolated regions to reach those who have no houses of worship of their own, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Tuesday. The church will be built on a 15m Kamaz truck base and will include a dome.
South African arms maker Denel will not immediately benefit from a new United States Army contract to test its ammunition, the company said on Tuesday. The US Army needs projectiles for its advanced conventional artillery ammunition programme and the artillery projectiles are of a South African design.
A truck carrying 8 000 live chickens overturned on a Swedish highway on Tuesday, sending a sea of fluttering poultry on to the road and forcing authorities to shut it down for more than nine hours, police said. Several thousand surviving chickens escaped from their cages and covered the E6 highway.