The World Health Organisation on Tuesday accused the global tobacco industry of continuing to use misleading labels to lure millions of people, including children, to take up smoking. On the eve of World No Tobacco Day, WHO said it would focus on the "tobacco industry’s lies" and the great variety of deadly tobacco products.
Townsville Golf Club president Terry Walsh thought golfers reporting crocodiles on the course were hallucinating — until he saw them himself. "For the last two years, the people I play golf with have been saying there were crocs on the course and I thought they were on drugs," Walsh told the Australian Associated Press in the tropical northern city.
A group of South African game developers is planning the development of an open-source adventure role-playing game that the developers hope will reinvigorate South Africa’s game-development industry. The game is likely to have an African folklore and mythology theme.
China’s will next month increase down-payments on home loans and broaden the capital gains tax, moves analysts said on Tuesday should help cool the overheated real estate sector in the short term. The down-payment on homes above 90 square metres would be raised to 30% from 20%, as authorities target the high-end of the property market.
Congress has stalled Pentagon plans to put conventional warheads on inter-continental missiles for use in Washington’s ”war on terror”, out of concern that they could trigger a nuclear war. The defence department is seeking -million for the conversion of submarine-based missiles as part of its Global Strike project.
It is going to come as a shock to tens of millions of lungs, but the Chinese government is planning a tobacco-free Olympics when the world’s heaviest smoking nation hosts the event in 2008. ”Let a smokeless games provide healthy competition, a healthy environment and a healthy lifestyle,” the Health Ministry said in a news release.
By day, residents of The Villages enjoy all the respectable pursuits of a healthy old age — a hand of cards, a tea dance and perhaps a round of golf before happy hour. But doctors are reporting a sharp rise in sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes and human papillomavirus among pensioners at the retirement community and say the growing popularity of Viagra is to blame.
Former southern Sudanese rebels wound up landmark talks with the ruling party in Khartoum on Monday, vowing to work as partners but failing to reach agreement on a disputed oil-rich province. First Vice-President Salva Kiir, who heads the SPLM, and former arch-foe President Omar al-Beshir told journalists that they would work together to bring stability to the violence-wracked nation.
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told Western newspaper editors on Monday to stop generalising about Africa and concentrate more on the continent’s success stories. Issues of real concern, such as Western poaching of Africa’s best and brightest talent, were being overlooked as the world’s media focused on wars and poverty, she told the annual world congress of the International Press Institute.
The African National Congress Youth League must retract its calls for the party’s next president to be Jacob Zuma, ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said on Monday. Motlanthe said the youth league ought to be guided by the policies of the party, which gave it the same status as each of the nine provinces in terms of nominations.