Cameroon’s government has shut down twelve independent radio and television stations in the southwest of the country in a fresh crackdown on the media during the run-up to presidential elections due in October, according to international media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres.
South African-listed health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings (NCL) has agreed to sell its Australian businesses, comprising the four retail brands Priceline, Priceline Pharmacy, Price Attack and House grouped in New Clicks Australia, to a private equity consortium for Aus$107-million.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa headed south at the start on Monday, with a stronger rand taking its toll on heavyweight dual-listed and resources stocks. With many players still on holiday, volumes remained light.
President Yoweri Museveni’s decision to resign from his military rank of lieutenant-general in order to concentrate on party politics will have little effect on the ongoing effort to root out the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army from northern Uganda, according to an opposition MP.
The recording industry’s legal onslaught against internet song-swappers appears to be having its desired effect. The percentage of Americans who download music online has been sliced in half. Only 14% of internet users surveyed from November 18 to December 14 said they sometimes download songs to their computers, according to a report.
A six-wheeled robot weighing as much as two people slammed into the atmosphere of Mars yesterday morning at 19 200kph, opened a parachute, fired rockets, inflated its airbags and bounced safely to a halt on the floor of a meteor crater.
The statutory body that monitors examinations has said that the standard of the 2003 matriculation examinations will be investigated amid controversy over whether the pass rate was manipulated and artificially inflated, it was reported on Sunday.
A voice on an audio tape purporting to be that of Osama bin Laden on Sunday urged Muslims to rise up against United States forces in Iraq and disparaged the US-backed ”road map” for peace in the Middle East. The tape, if authenticated, could offer further compelling evidence that the al-Qaeda leader is still alive despite a two-year manhunt.
US to fingerprint foreigners
It is Basra’s latest tourist attraction: Saddam Hussein’s luxury yacht, still lying half-submerged in the city’s shabby harbour. The yacht was one of first targets in the coalition’s campaign nine months ago to get rid of Saddam. But the missile failed to sink Al-Mansour (The Victory) — which now lies half across the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
The Egyptian charter airline whose Boeing 737 crashed on Saturday killing all 148 people on board, including 133 French tourists, has been banned from flying to one European country for more than a year because of safety concerns, it emerged on Sunday.