It is already famous for its brash spending, high prices and love affair with designer labels. But on Sunday Moscow confirmed its reputation as the world’s most decadently expensive city with the opening of a luxury hotel aimed at the mega-rich.
Two days before Canadians celebrated their nation, a survey published last Friday found that more than half of them would not be granted citizenship on the basis of their knowledge of their own country. According to the Ipsos Reid poll, 60% of Canadians would fail the citizenship exam, a necessary step for immigrants to be granted citizenship.
South Africa coach Jake White says the Wallabies still have problems with their scrum and he wants a fair contest in Saturday’s Tri-Nations rugby Test in Sydney. White says he plans to speak with New Zealand referee Paul Honiss before the Test to ensure what he calls a ”fair” scrum contest against the Australians.
Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno’s son, Brahim, was found dead on Monday morning in the underground parking lot of a building he lived in near Paris, police and court officials said. President Déby sacked Brahim as his adviser in June 2006 after the then 27-year-old was arrested in a Paris discotheque for possessing an illegal firearm and drugs.
Hooker Raphael Ibanez will captain France during the World Cup later this year, team manager Jo Maso announced on Monday. He will take over from lock Fabien Pelous. The 34-year-old Ibanez, who currently plays with London side Wasps, was captain of the French team at the 1999 World Cup, taking the team to the final where they lost to Australia.
A deal between Starbucks and Ethiopia that ends their trademark dispute and offers more benefits to Ethiopian coffee farmers has been hailed as a potential model for other poor nations seeking to better use the modern trading system, especially the often-controversial intellectual property rights provisions.
Celebrities and sun-seekers from the East and West are fuelling a property boom in Montenegro that has seen prices surge two-fold in the year since the tiny Balkan state won independence. Investment speculators led the influx, snapping up houses, apartments and plots of land wedged between Montenegro’s craggy mountains and its coastline.
Britney Spears, Paul McCartney, Sting and Paul Simon have all travelled to Sri Lanka for a big-bucks taste of tropical luxury. But an escalating war with Tamil Tiger rebels and increasingly gruesome headlines on the human rights situation means that the rich or famous are now staying away — and rooms in the island’s boutique hotels are going for a song.
In a vast wilderness in eastern Russia, scientists and tourism entrepreneurs are anxiously working out how much is left of one of the world’s great natural wonders, Geyser Valley. The far eastern Kamchatka peninsula boasts nature at its most unpredictable, as demonstrated by a recent landslide that obliterated many of its prized geysers.
South Africa’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) slipped for the third consecutive month to 56 in June, on a seasonally adjusted basis, after falling to 57,2 in May. The measure of the country’s manufacturing activity was weighed down partly by a drop in inventories while growth in new sales orders also moderated.